Abstract
Television viewing has been popularly hypothesized to shorten attention spans, increase frantic behavior, and cause brain damage. A review of the scientific literature reveals no support for these claims. In fact, contrary to popular conceptions, it appears that television viewing is a cognitively active behavior, sharing many characteristics of other leisure-time activities such as reading. Although there is some evidence of subtle cognitive effects, such findings require further study to verify the link and the direction of causality. In the same vein, though different patterns of EEG have been reported when comparing television viewing with other activities, these findings indicate only that television viewing differs in some respects from other activities. Like the research on cognitive effects, nothing in this research supports the commonly hypothesized devastating effects of television viewing.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Anderson, D. (1987). Analysis of lengths of TV viewing sessions. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Consumer Research, Boston.
Anderson, D., Alwitt, L., Lorch, E. & Levin, S. (1979). Watching children watch television. In G. Hale & M. Lewis (Eds.), Attention and cognitive development (pp. 331–361). New York: Plenum Press.
Anderson, D., Choi, H., & Lorch, E. (1987). Attentional inertia reduces distractibility during young children’s television viewing. Child Development 58, 798–806.
Anderson, D., & Collins, P. (1988). The impact on children’s education: Television’s influence on cognitive development. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Education.
Anderson, D., & Field, D. (In press). Online and offline assessment of the television audience. In J. Bryant & D. Zillmann (Eds.), Responding to the screen: Reception and reaction processes. Hillsdale, NJ: Earlbaum.
Anderson, D., Levin, S., & Lorch, E. (1977). The effects of TV program pacing on the behavior of preschool children. AV Communication Review 25, 159–166.
Anderson, D., & Lorch, E. (1983). Looking at television: Action or reaction?. In J. Bryant & D. Anderson (Eds.), Children’s understanding of television: Research on attention and comprehension (pp. 1–34). New York: Academic Press.
Anderson, D., Lorch, E., Field, D., Collins, P., & Nathan, J. (1986). Television viewing at home: Age trends in visual attention and time with television. Child Development 57, 1024–1033.
Anderson, D., Lorch, E., Field, D., & Sanders, J. (1981a). The effects of TV program compre- hensibility on preschool children’s visual attention to television. Child Development 52, 151–157.
Anderson, D., Lorch, E., Smith, R., Bradford, R., & Levin, S. (1981b). Effects of peer presence on preschool children’s television viewing behavior. Developmental Psychology 17, 446–453.
Anderson, D., & McGuire, T. (1978). The effect of TV viewing on the educational performance of elementary school children. The Alberta Journal of Educational Research 24, 156–163.
Anderson, D., & Smith, R. (1984). Young children’s TV viewing: The problem of cognitive continuity. In F. Morrison, C. Lord, & D. Keating (Eds.), Advances in applied developmental psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 115–163). New York: Academic Press.
Appel, V., Weinstein, S., & Weinstein, C. (1979). Brain activity and recall of TV. Journal of Advertising Research 19, 7–15.
Bryant, J., Alexander, A., & Brown, D. (1983). Learning from educational television programs. In M. J. Howe (Ed), Learning from television: Psychological and educational research (pp. 1–30). London: Academic Press.
Burns, J. (1988). The relationship between attentional inertia and recognition memory. Unpublished Masters Thesis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Choi, H. (1988). Attentional patterns in five year olds’ toy play: Test of attentional inertia in toy play. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Collins, W. (1982). Cognitive processing aspects of television viewing. In D. Pearl & L. Bouthilet (Eds.), Television and behavior: Ten years of scientific progress and implications for the eighties (Vol. 2, pp. 9–23). Rockville, MD: National Institute of Mental Health.
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Kubey, R. (1982). Television and the rest of life: A systematic comparison of subjective experience. In D. Whitney & E. Wartella (Eds.), Mass communication review yearbook (Vol. 3, pp. 317–328). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Emery, F., & Emery, M. (1974). A choice of futures: To enlighten or inform. Canberra, Australia: Australian National University.
Emery, F., & Emery, M. (1976). A choice of futures. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Social Sciences Division.
Featherman, G., Frieser, D., Greenspun, D., Harris, B., Schulman, D., & Crown, P. (1979). Electroencephalographs and electrooculographic correlates of television viewing. Final Technical Report: National Science Foundation Student-Oriented Studies (Grant No. SPI78–03698). Hampshire College: Amherst, MA.
Field, D., & Anderson, D. (1985). Instruction and modality effects on children’s television attention and comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology 77, 91–100.
Gadberry, S. (1980). Effects of restricting first graders’ TV viewing on leisure time use, IQ change, and cognitive style. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 1, 45–47.
Grieve, R., & Williamson, K. (1977). Aspects of auditory and visual attention to narrative material in normal and mentally handicapped children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 18, 251–262.
Halpern, W. (1975). Turned-on toddlers. Journal of Communication 25, 66–70.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York: Holt.
Krugman, H. (1971). Brain wave measures of media involvement. Journal of Advertising Research 11, 3–9.
Krugman, H. (1977). Memory without recall, exposure without perception. Journal of Advertising Research 17, 7–12.
Lorch, E., Anderson, D., & Levin, S. (1979). The relationship of visual attention to children’s comprehension of television. Child Development 50, 722–727.
Lorch, E., & Castle, V. (1986). Preschool children’s attention to television: Visual attention and probe response times. Unpublished manuscript, University of Kentucky, Lexington.
Lorch, E., Milich, R., Welsh, R., Yocum, M., Bluhm, C, & Klein, M. (1987). A comparison of the television viewing and comprehension of attention deficit disorders and normal boys. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, MD.
Mander, J. (1978). Four arguments for the elimination of television. New York: William Morrow.
Meadowcroft, J., & Reeves, B. (1985). The development of schema-based strategies for attending to television stories. Paper presented at the Speech Communication Association Convention, Denver.
Moody, K. (1980). Growing up on television: The TV effect. New York: Times Books.
Morgan, M., & Gross, L. (1982). Television and educational achievement and aspiration. In D. Pearl, L. Bouthilet, & J. Lazar (Eds.), Television and behavior (Vol. 2): Technical reviews (pp. 78–90). Washington D.C.: Department of Health and Human Services.
Mulholland, T. (1968). Feedback electroencephalography. Activitas Nervosa Superior (Prague), 10, 410–438.
Mulholland, T. (1974). Training visual attention. Academic Therapy 10, 5–17.
Pearl, D., Bouthilet, L., & Lazar, J. (1982). Television and behavior: Ten years of scientific progress and implications for the eighties. Washington D.C.: Department of Health and Human Services.
Radlick, M.S. (1980). The processing demands of television: Neurophysiological correlates of television viewing. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Reeves, B., Thorson, E., Rothschild, M., McDonald, D., Hirsch, J., & Goldstein, M. (1985). Attention to television: Intrastimulus effects of movement and scene change on alpha variations over time. International fournal of Neuro science 27, 241–255.
Rothschild, M., Thorson, E., Reeves, B., Hirsch, J., & Goldstein, R. (1986a). EEG activity and the processing of television commercials. Communication and scene change on alpha variations over time. International fournal of Neuro science 27, 241–255.
Rothschild, M., Thorson, E., Reeves, B., Hirsch, J., & Goldstein, R. (1986b). EEG activity and the processing of television commercials. Communication Research 13, 182–220.
Salomon, G. (1979). Interaction of media, cognition and learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Schafer, E. (1978). Brain responses while viewing television reflect program interest. International fournal of Neuroscience 8, 71–77.
Schorr, L. (1983). Environmental deterrents: Poverty, affluence, violence and television. In M. Levine, W. Carey, A. Crocker, & R. Gross (Eds.), Developmental-behavioral pediatrics (pp. 293–312). Boston: W. B. Saunders.
Shagass, C, Overton, D., Bartolucci, G., & Straumanis, J. (1971). Effect of attention modification by television viewing on somatosensory evoked responses and recovery functions,fournal of Nervous and Mental Disease 152, 53–62.
Smith, R., Anderson, D., & Fischer, C. (1985). Young children’s comprehension of montage. Child Development 56, 962–971.
Swerdlow, J. (1981). What is television doing to real people?. Today’s Education 70, 50–57.
Walker, J. (1980). Changes in EEG rhythms during television viewing: Preliminary comparisons with reading and other tasks. Perceptual and Motor Skills 51, 255–261.
Williams, T. (1986). The impact of television: A natural experiment in three communities. Orlando: Academic Press.
Winn, M. (1985). The plug-in-drug. New York: Viking Press.
Winn, M. (1987). Unplugging the plug-in-drug. New York: Viking Press.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Burns, J.J., Anderson, D.R. (1991). Cognition and Watching Television. In: Tupper, D.E., Cicerone, K.D. (eds) The Neuropsychology of Everyday Life: Issues in Development and Rehabilitation. Foundations of Neuropsychology, vol 3. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1511-7_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1511-7_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-8812-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-1511-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive