Very
young infants yawn or cry after watching
animated programs
Keiko Mizukami, Mami Ishibashi
Developmental Psychology
Rescarch Laboratory National Children's Medical
Research Center Taishido, Tokyo
Japan
Television and videotape-recorded programs
may be hazardous stimuli for the behavioral
development of young infants.
Though little is known about infant
responses to stimulation by these media, a study
we performed indicates that animated programs
tire young infants.
The subjects in an experiment performed at
our research center were 19 infants, ages 11-29
weeks, and their mothers. The infants were
placed in the experimenter's lap so that the
infant's face was about 50-60 cm from the
television screen. The mother sat facing the
infant beside the television. The infant was
shown "Mr. Duck Steps Out," a Walt Disney,
Donald Duck animated program. The mother was
asked not to interfere with her infant's viewing
for the first 3 minutes, then to attract ils
attention during the next 3 minutes. Two
videotape recorders were used to record the
infant's and the mother's behaviors. A frame
count was superimposed at a rate of 30 frames
per second.
The frequency, duration, and total duration
of periods when the infant was watching the
program or watching the mother and the
occurrence of yawning and crying as indexes of
sensory overload were analyzed by two
independent raters from the videotape
record.
The infants watched the program more than
they did the mother, whether the mother
attempted to interfere or not.
Infants younger than 16 weeks were
especially attentive to the program: seven
of 10 infants, ages 11-16 weeks, watched the
prograrn for more than 2.5 minutes of the first
3-minute period, but none of the nine older
infants did (kl = 7.19, df= 1 ' P < 0.01). In
older infants, viewing patterns were similar
whether they watched the program or the mother,
but in younger infants, they différed:
younger infants watched their mother briefly but
watched the program continuously. An especially
interesting finding was that six of the seven
younger infants who watched the program. for
over 2.5 minutes during the first 3 minutes
either yawned (five infants) or
cried (one infant) during the second 3
rninutes.
The data suggest that stimulation by the
program may overload younger infants who are not
yet able to regulate sensory intake. Television
and videotape-recorded programs, unlike mothers'
responses to infants' social and learning
abilities, are unregulated and unsynchronized
with the infant's needs. They may therefore be
hazardous stimuli for the behavioral development
of young infants.
Singer DG: Caution: Television may be
hazardous Io a child's mental health. J Dev
Behav Pediatr 10:259-261, 1989
Hollenbeck A, Slaby R: Infant visual
responses to television. Child Dev 50:41-45,
1979
