Daniel R Anderson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3620496 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Daniel R Anderson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Daniel R |
| FAMILY NAME | Anderson |
| SIGNATURE | ANDERSON D R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Massachusetts Amherst |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6041-0077 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 66 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1966 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Access, socioeconomic environment, and death from Covid-19 in Nebraska
Our study assesses whether factors related to healthcare access in the first year of the pandemic affect mortality and length of stay (LOS). Our cohort study examined hospitalized patients at Nebraska Medicine between April and October 2020 who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 and had a charted sepsis related diagnostic code. Multivariate logistic was used to analyze the odds of mortality and linear regression was used to calculate the parameter estima…
Reflections on technologies for studying children and media
There is a great opportunity for modern technologies to advance research on children and media. Noninvasive data collection and analysis of a large variety of behaviors and bodily functions are becoming more possible, affordable, and useable with children. These include brain imaging, genetic and epigenetic analysis, hormonal assays, eye tracking, actigraphy, point of view video recording, content analysis, and language analysis. The possibilitie…
American parents’ active engagement mediates the impact of background television on toddlers’ play
This secondary analysis examined the extent to which parent engagement mediates the impact of adult-directed background television (BTV) on toddlers’ toy play. Fifty-one children (12, 24, 36 mos) played in a furnished observation lab for 30 min without BTV and 30 min with BTV (order counterbalanced across participants). Parents were instructed to act as they normally would during leisure time. The findings revealed an indirect negative effect of …
Video Deficit in Toddlers’ Object Retrieval: What Eye Movements Reveal About Online Cognition
The purpose of this study was to determine whether toddlers exhibit different eye‐movement patterns when watching real events versus video demonstrations in an object‐retrieval task. Twenty‐four‐month‐olds ( N = 36) searched for a sticker on a felt board after watching an experimenter hide it behind a felt object in person or via video. Eye movements during the hiding event were recorded. Compared to those watching in‐person events, children watc…
Teaching CAM: Reflections on Teaching About Children and Media
Additional informationNotes on contributorsDaniel R. AndersonDaniel R. Anderson, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts. Although retired from teaching, he remains active in research and consultation. His published work concerns attention, comprehension, viewing behavior, and the long-term impact of television on development. Dr Anderson's current research interests include toddler underst…
The Effects of Background Television on the Quantity and Quality of Child-Directed Speech by Parents
Prior research has identified negative effects of background television (TV) exposure on toddler toy play and parent–child interactions and has documented a negative association between early TV exposure and language development. It is hypothesized that background, adult-directed TV reduces the quantity and quality of parent language addressed to their young children. To test this hypothesis, the current study compared parent language directed at…
The Educational Impact Of Television: Understanding Television's Potential And Limitations
Watching and understanding television requires the development of attention, media decoding, and narrative comprehension skills. Children under the age of two years have difficulty using televised information to effectively guide their behavior, a phenomenon known as the video deficit. Beyond the infant and toddler years, however, television can become a powerful tool for education. Programs designed with specific educational objectives and resea…
From blooming, buzzing confusion to media literacy: The early development of television viewing
Video comprehensibility and attention in very young children
Earlier research established that preschool children pay less attention to television that is sequentially or linguistically incomprehensible. The authors of this study determined the youngest age for which this effect can be found. One hundred and three 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-month-olds' looking and heart rate were recorded while they watched Teletubbies, a television program designed for very young children. Experimenters manipulated comprehensib…
The Impact of Background Television on Parent–Child Interaction
This study investigated the hypothesis that background television affects interactions between parents and very young children. Fifty-one 12-, 24-, and 36-month-old children, each accompanied by 1 parent, were observed for 1 hr of free play in a laboratory space resembling a family room. For half of the hour, an adult-directed television program played in the background on a monaural television set. During the other half hour, the television was …
Children, Media, and Methodology
Media effect studies on children have focused on time spent with media relative to some outcome. We argue that researchers should examine quantity as the sole measure of media input only when it is of theoretical significance. In most circumstances media content and form are more important than time spent. A media diet metaphor is proposed as an alternative approach that includes both amount of exposure and program content across media platforms.…
The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children
This experiment tests the hypothesis that background, adult television is a disruptive influence on very young children’s behavior. Fifty 12-, 24-, and 36-month-olds played with a variety of toys for 1 hr. For half of the hour, a game show played in the background on a monaural TV set. During the other half hour, the TV was off. The children looked at the TV for only a few seconds at a time and less than once per minute. Nevertheless, background …
A Neuroscience of Children and Media
Modern techniques of human neuroscience are just beginning to be applied to research on the impact of electronic media. For example, a recent special issue of Media Psychology (2006, Vol. 8, No. 1)
Television and Very Young Children
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has recommended that children younger than 24 months of age not be exposed to television. Nevertheless, television programs and home videos are increasingly produced for very young children. This article reviews the extant research concerning television and very young children with respect to the AAP recommendation. More very young children are currently watching television than in the recent past; they pa…
Viewing the Viewers: Viewing Behaviors by Children and Adults During Television Programs and Commercials
Videotapes of in-home television viewing of 50 individuals in five age groups (2-, 5-, 8-, and 12-year-olds, and adults), recorded over a 10-day period, revealed that 46% of time with television was spent in some activity instead of or in addition to looking at the TV. Social interaction was the most common nonviewing activity for all viewers, followed by playing and eating for children and reading for adults. Women were more likely than all othe…
Form and content: Looking at visual features of television
Television viewing at home by 50 individuals in 5 age groups (2-, 5-, 8-, 12-year-olds, and adults) was recorded on 1-s time-lapse videotapes over 10-day periods. Coding was based on 5-min point samples. Analysis examined looking at the TV screen in relation to the visual presence of the features cuts, movement, animation, man, woman, child, and nonhuman; content features were child vs. adult programming and overt purposeful character behavior. C…
Educational Television is not an Oxymoron
An implicit justification for the Children's Television Act is that curriculum-based television programming, such as Sesame Street, is in fact educational. Such programming, however, has been attacked on grounds that it produces shortened attention spans and retards thought and language development. I review these claims in the light of research on children's television viewing. The research provides no support for these attacks and instead revea…
Gender constancy and television viewing
Cognitive developmental theory predicts that gender constant children bias their attention to same-sex TV characters compared with children who have not achieved gender constancy. The TV viewing at home of 24 5-year-old children was videotaped over 10 days. Half of the children were high in gender constancy. Gender constant boys biased their attention consistent with the hypothesis, and they also viewed programs featuring a greater percentage of …
Television Viewing at Home: Age Trends in Visual Attention and Time with TV
Television viewing and adult sex-role attitudes
Effects of peer presence on preschool children's television-viewing behavior
Subjects were 3and 5-year-old children who were observed watching television in the presence of an audiovisual slide distractor in groups of one, two, or three viewers. Peers viewing the TV together influenced each other's behavior in a synchronized fashion: When one child looked at the TV, looked at the distractor, or demonstrated overt involvement with the TV, the other child tended to do the same thing. This peer influence occurred above and b…
Preschool Children's Visual Attention to Attributes of Television
Journal Article Preschool Children's Visual Attention to Attributes of Television Get access Linda F. Alwitt, Linda F. Alwitt 1Linda F. Alwitt (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, 1977) resides at 1136 Jeffrey Court, Northbrook, Illinois 60062 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Daniel R. Anderson, Daniel R. Anderson 2Daniel R. Anderson (Ph.D., Brown University, 1971) is associate professor of psychology at th…
The Development of Attention
Stephen R. Levin, Daniel R. Anderson; The Development of Attention, Journal of Communication, Volume 26, Issue 2, 1 June 1976, Pages 126–135, https://doi.o
Field teaching as an activist strategy‐thoughts about issues
Psychology of the Scientist: XX. Cross-Validation of Biographical Information Predictor Keys across Diverse Samples of Scientists
A study investigating the generalizability of biographical characteristics from physical scientists (NASA) to scientists involved in pharmaceutical research (RMI) was reported. The criterion in both samples was the rated creative performance of the individual scientists. A key developed on over 2,000 (NASA) scientists was applied to the test protocols of 157 (RMI) scientists. The resulting Pearson product-moment correlation was .35 ( P < .01). A …
Television and Very Young Children
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has recommended that children younger than 24 months of age not be exposed to television. Nevertheless, television programs and home videos are increasingly produced for very young children. This article reviews the extant research concerning television and very young children with respect to the AAP recommendation. More very young children are currently watching television than in the recent past; they pa…
Form and content: Looking at visual features of television
Television viewing at home by 50 individuals in 5 age groups (2-, 5-, 8-, 12-year-olds, and adults) was recorded on 1-s time-lapse videotapes over 10-day periods. Coding was based on 5-min point samples. Analysis examined looking at the TV screen in relation to the visual presence of the features cuts, movement, animation, man, woman, child, and nonhuman; content features were child vs. adult programming and overt purposeful character behavior. C…
Preschool Children's Visual Attention to Attributes of Television
Journal Article Preschool Children's Visual Attention to Attributes of Television Get access Linda F. Alwitt, Linda F. Alwitt 1Linda F. Alwitt (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, 1977) resides at 1136 Jeffrey Court, Northbrook, Illinois 60062 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Daniel R. Anderson, Daniel R. Anderson 2Daniel R. Anderson (Ph.D., Brown University, 1971) is associate professor of psychology at th…
Gender constancy and television viewing
Cognitive developmental theory predicts that gender constant children bias their attention to same-sex TV characters compared with children who have not achieved gender constancy. The TV viewing at home of 24 5-year-old children was videotaped over 10 days. Half of the children were high in gender constancy. Gender constant boys biased their attention consistent with the hypothesis, and they also viewed programs featuring a greater percentage of …
Effects of peer presence on preschool children's television-viewing behavior
Subjects were 3and 5-year-old children who were observed watching television in the presence of an audiovisual slide distractor in groups of one, two, or three viewers. Peers viewing the TV together influenced each other's behavior in a synchronized fashion: When one child looked at the TV, looked at the distractor, or demonstrated overt involvement with the TV, the other child tended to do the same thing. This peer influence occurred above and b…
Television viewing and adult sex-role attitudes
Video comprehensibility and attention in very young children
Earlier research established that preschool children pay less attention to television that is sequentially or linguistically incomprehensible. The authors of this study determined the youngest age for which this effect can be found. One hundred and three 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-month-olds' looking and heart rate were recorded while they watched Teletubbies, a television program designed for very young children. Experimenters manipulated comprehensib…
Educational Television is not an Oxymoron
An implicit justification for the Children's Television Act is that curriculum-based television programming, such as Sesame Street, is in fact educational. Such programming, however, has been attacked on grounds that it produces shortened attention spans and retards thought and language development. I review these claims in the light of research on children's television viewing. The research provides no support for these attacks and instead revea…
Children, Media, and Methodology
Media effect studies on children have focused on time spent with media relative to some outcome. We argue that researchers should examine quantity as the sole measure of media input only when it is of theoretical significance. In most circumstances media content and form are more important than time spent. A media diet metaphor is proposed as an alternative approach that includes both amount of exposure and program content across media platforms.…
Psychology of the Scientist: XX. Cross-Validation of Biographical Information Predictor Keys across Diverse Samples of Scientists
A study investigating the generalizability of biographical characteristics from physical scientists (NASA) to scientists involved in pharmaceutical research (RMI) was reported. The criterion in both samples was the rated creative performance of the individual scientists. A key developed on over 2,000 (NASA) scientists was applied to the test protocols of 157 (RMI) scientists. The resulting Pearson product-moment correlation was .35 ( P < .01). A …
Field teaching as an activist strategy‐thoughts about issues
The Development of Attention
Stephen R. Levin, Daniel R. Anderson; The Development of Attention, Journal of Communication, Volume 26, Issue 2, 1 June 1976, Pages 126–135, https://doi.o
Preschool Children's Visual Attention to Attributes of Television
Journal Article Preschool Children's Visual Attention to Attributes of Television Get access Linda F. Alwitt, Linda F. Alwitt 1Linda F. Alwitt (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, 1977) resides at 1136 Jeffrey Court, Northbrook, Illinois 60062 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Daniel R. Anderson, Daniel R. Anderson 2Daniel R. Anderson (Ph.D., Brown University, 1971) is associate professor of psychology at th…
Effects of peer presence on preschool children's television-viewing behavior
Subjects were 3and 5-year-old children who were observed watching television in the presence of an audiovisual slide distractor in groups of one, two, or three viewers. Peers viewing the TV together influenced each other's behavior in a synchronized fashion: When one child looked at the TV, looked at the distractor, or demonstrated overt involvement with the TV, the other child tended to do the same thing. This peer influence occurred above and b…
Television viewing and adult sex-role attitudes
Television Viewing at Home: Age Trends in Visual Attention and Time with TV
Gender constancy and television viewing
Cognitive developmental theory predicts that gender constant children bias their attention to same-sex TV characters compared with children who have not achieved gender constancy. The TV viewing at home of 24 5-year-old children was videotaped over 10 days. Half of the children were high in gender constancy. Gender constant boys biased their attention consistent with the hypothesis, and they also viewed programs featuring a greater percentage of …
Educational Television is not an Oxymoron
An implicit justification for the Children's Television Act is that curriculum-based television programming, such as Sesame Street, is in fact educational. Such programming, however, has been attacked on grounds that it produces shortened attention spans and retards thought and language development. I review these claims in the light of research on children's television viewing. The research provides no support for these attacks and instead revea…
Form and content: Looking at visual features of television
Television viewing at home by 50 individuals in 5 age groups (2-, 5-, 8-, 12-year-olds, and adults) was recorded on 1-s time-lapse videotapes over 10-day periods. Coding was based on 5-min point samples. Analysis examined looking at the TV screen in relation to the visual presence of the features cuts, movement, animation, man, woman, child, and nonhuman; content features were child vs. adult programming and overt purposeful character behavior. C…
Viewing the Viewers: Viewing Behaviors by Children and Adults During Television Programs and Commercials
Videotapes of in-home television viewing of 50 individuals in five age groups (2-, 5-, 8-, and 12-year-olds, and adults), recorded over a 10-day period, revealed that 46% of time with television was spent in some activity instead of or in addition to looking at the TV. Social interaction was the most common nonviewing activity for all viewers, followed by playing and eating for children and reading for adults. Women were more likely than all othe…
Television and Very Young Children
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has recommended that children younger than 24 months of age not be exposed to television. Nevertheless, television programs and home videos are increasingly produced for very young children. This article reviews the extant research concerning television and very young children with respect to the AAP recommendation. More very young children are currently watching television than in the recent past; they pa…
A Neuroscience of Children and Media
Modern techniques of human neuroscience are just beginning to be applied to research on the impact of electronic media. For example, a recent special issue of Media Psychology (2006, Vol. 8, No. 1)
The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children
This experiment tests the hypothesis that background, adult television is a disruptive influence on very young children’s behavior. Fifty 12-, 24-, and 36-month-olds played with a variety of toys for 1 hr. For half of the hour, a game show played in the background on a monaural TV set. During the other half hour, the TV was off. The children looked at the TV for only a few seconds at a time and less than once per minute. Nevertheless, background …
The Impact of Background Television on Parent–Child Interaction
This study investigated the hypothesis that background television affects interactions between parents and very young children. Fifty-one 12-, 24-, and 36-month-old children, each accompanied by 1 parent, were observed for 1 hr of free play in a laboratory space resembling a family room. For half of the hour, an adult-directed television program played in the background on a monaural television set. During the other half hour, the television was …
Children, Media, and Methodology
Media effect studies on children have focused on time spent with media relative to some outcome. We argue that researchers should examine quantity as the sole measure of media input only when it is of theoretical significance. In most circumstances media content and form are more important than time spent. A media diet metaphor is proposed as an alternative approach that includes both amount of exposure and program content across media platforms.…
From blooming, buzzing confusion to media literacy: The early development of television viewing
Video comprehensibility and attention in very young children
Earlier research established that preschool children pay less attention to television that is sequentially or linguistically incomprehensible. The authors of this study determined the youngest age for which this effect can be found. One hundred and three 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-month-olds' looking and heart rate were recorded while they watched Teletubbies, a television program designed for very young children. Experimenters manipulated comprehensib…
The Educational Impact Of Television: Understanding Television's Potential And Limitations
Watching and understanding television requires the development of attention, media decoding, and narrative comprehension skills. Children under the age of two years have difficulty using televised information to effectively guide their behavior, a phenomenon known as the video deficit. Beyond the infant and toddler years, however, television can become a powerful tool for education. Programs designed with specific educational objectives and resea…
Teaching CAM: Reflections on Teaching About Children and Media
Additional informationNotes on contributorsDaniel R. AndersonDaniel R. Anderson, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts. Although retired from teaching, he remains active in research and consultation. His published work concerns attention, comprehension, viewing behavior, and the long-term impact of television on development. Dr Anderson's current research interests include toddler underst…
The Effects of Background Television on the Quantity and Quality of Child-Directed Speech by Parents
Prior research has identified negative effects of background television (TV) exposure on toddler toy play and parent–child interactions and has documented a negative association between early TV exposure and language development. It is hypothesized that background, adult-directed TV reduces the quantity and quality of parent language addressed to their young children. To test this hypothesis, the current study compared parent language directed at…
Video Deficit in Toddlers’ Object Retrieval: What Eye Movements Reveal About Online Cognition
The purpose of this study was to determine whether toddlers exhibit different eye‐movement patterns when watching real events versus video demonstrations in an object‐retrieval task. Twenty‐four‐month‐olds ( N = 36) searched for a sticker on a felt board after watching an experimenter hide it behind a felt object in person or via video. Eye movements during the hiding event were recorded. Compared to those watching in‐person events, children watc…
American parents’ active engagement mediates the impact of background television on toddlers’ play
This secondary analysis examined the extent to which parent engagement mediates the impact of adult-directed background television (BTV) on toddlers’ toy play. Fifty-one children (12, 24, 36 mos) played in a furnished observation lab for 30 min without BTV and 30 min with BTV (order counterbalanced across participants). Parents were instructed to act as they normally would during leisure time. The findings revealed an indirect negative effect of …
Reflections on technologies for studying children and media
There is a great opportunity for modern technologies to advance research on children and media. Noninvasive data collection and analysis of a large variety of behaviors and bodily functions are becoming more possible, affordable, and useable with children. These include brain imaging, genetic and epigenetic analysis, hormonal assays, eye tracking, actigraphy, point of view video recording, content analysis, and language analysis. The possibilitie…
Access, socioeconomic environment, and death from Covid-19 in Nebraska
Our study assesses whether factors related to healthcare access in the first year of the pandemic affect mortality and length of stay (LOS). Our cohort study examined hospitalized patients at Nebraska Medicine between April and October 2020 who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 and had a charted sepsis related diagnostic code. Multivariate logistic was used to analyze the odds of mortality and linear regression was used to calculate the parameter estima…
Psychology (24 works) · Child Development and Digital Technology (18 works) · Developmental psychology (16 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Impact of Technology on Adolescents (8 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · ICT in Developing Communities (6 works) · Pedagogy (6 works) · Cognition (5 works) · Cognitive psychology (5 works)