CCTV plays a prominent role in public security, health and safety. Monitoring large arrays of CCTV camera feeds is a visually and cognitively demanding task. Arranging the scenes by geographical proximity in the surveilled environment has been recommended to reduce this demand, but empirical tests of this method have failed to find any benefit.…

Coviewing is a commonly recommended practice, but little is known about how coviewing impacts children's educational media viewing experience. We investigated how coviewing impacts attention and comprehension of educational media, as well as the role of baseline vocabulary in understanding these associations. Eighty-three preschoolers viewed two…

While perceiving speech, people see mouth shapes that are systematically associated with sounds. In particular, a vertically stretched mouth produces a /woo/ sound, whereas a horizontally stretched mouth produces a /wee/ sound. We demonstrate that hearing these speech sounds alters how we see aspect ratio, a basic visual feature that contributes…

The present study examines coviewing of "Baby Mozart" by 6- to 18-month-old infants and their caregivers under naturalistic conditions. We had two questions. First, extending the method of Barr, Zack, Garcia, and Muentener (Infancy, 13 [2008], 30-56) to a younger population, we asked if age, prior exposure, and caregiver verbal input would predict…

This research focused on the observation of infants between the ages of 2 and 18 months with regard to their aesthetic preferences for a variety of visual stimuli. These stimuli included: a black-and-white schematic drawing of a baby, a popular cartoon image, a colorful abstract painting of a baby, and a photographic image of a baby's face. Prior…

Discusses changes that are needed in the perceptual, cognitive, and aesthetic principles governing the medium of television to compensate for the high-quality, filmlike picture produced by high definition television (HDTV), or improved definition television (IDTV). Topics discussed include changes in visual perception, cognitive processes and…

Investigates whether viewers of different ages are aware that camera lenses manipulate the apparent velocity and distance of events presented on television. Suggests that younger viewers do not understand how television production techniques manipulate perceptual information and may thus be misled by their use. (PD)

Identifies the cognitive skills necessary for children to accurately comprehend projective size on television. Traces the acquisition of these skills and identifies the role of media experience in facilitating comprehension by assessing the extent to which different types of television fare require the use of different cognitive skills. (MS)

Children aged 14 and 24 months were shown television depictions of adults manipulating toys in novel ways. Infants at both ages showed imitation of television models, even after 24-hour delays. This deferred imitation has social and policy implications as it suggests that television viewing can potentially affect infant behavior and development…

The degree of reality perception of cartoon and human-fantasy televised episodes was measured in four- and five-year-olds. Five-year-olds had a more mature reality perception than four-year-olds. Only five-year-olds had a more mature reality perception of cartoon than of human fantasy episodes. (Author/RD)

Discusses the field of television aesthetics and its contribution to education. Highlights include visual and auditory perception; cognition; composition of television images; and criteria for the analysis and evaluation of educational or instructional television programs, including content, medium, impact on the audience, perceptual factors,…

Nine studies showed a bidirectional link (a) between a global processing style and generation of similarities and (b) between a local processing style and generation of dissimilarities. In Experiments 1-4, participants were primed with global versus local perception styles and then asked to work on an allegedly unrelated generation task. Across…

Discussion of comprehension and attention processes of children viewing television programs highlights a study that was conducted to examine the potential impact of sound effects on children's visual orientation to television programs which varied in the rate of program pace. Results for four treatment groups of preschool children and fourth…

Concludes that viewers of television news tend to focus on the audio and are not disturbed by discontinuity in the video. (FL)

Examined children's monitoring of TV programs for visual content and processing of program content through language. Narration enhanced visual attention and comprehension. Auditory comprehension did not depend on looking. Auditory attention did not differ with the presence or absence of narration. (BC)