THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF MEDIA PRESENTATION ON CHILDREN’S SPATIAL MEMORY
Date
2019-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Dual representation is the notion that photographs must be interpreted in two ways for full understanding. First, one must recognize that the photograph is an object itself. Second, one must recognize that the photograph is a symbolic representation of a scene as it exists elsewhere in the world. The purpose of this research is to investigate whether preschoolers aged 4-5 years are able to understand images presented on tablets the same way that they understand images presented on physical cards. Experiment 1 compared children’s memory for physical photographs and digital photographs, finding significant differences between the two. The experiment replicated previous work finding boundary extension in the card condition, but not in the tablet condition. Experiment 2 followed Experiment 1 to determine whether the proximity of edges in the digital photograph condition, rather than the digital nature of the photographs themselves, caused the discrepancy between conditions in Experiment 1. When physical photographs were placed on top of a blank tablet, results replicated the card condition from Experiment 1. Experiment 3 encouraged children to conceptualize digital photographs in the same way as physical images by using a “magic trick” to make them interpret digital images on-screen as being real, physical cards that were magically transported to the screen. With this intervention, preschoolers did demonstrate boundary extension for digitally-presented images. In all experiments, the asymmetry in choices was not due to a selection bias, as tested with a guessing game task. We propose that the touchscreen tablet presentation of photographs interferes with young children’s ability to understand these images as symbolic referents. This raises concerns regarding the use of educational technology for teaching symbolic concepts.
Description
Keywords
Cognitive science, Media presentation, Spatial memory