Intelligent Character Study

We investigated whether children learn early math skills better from characters who interact in contingent, intelligent ways.  To do so, we had preschool-aged children play a game with an intelligent character: Dora the Explorer.  Dora asked the children math questions, and responded contingently to their answers. Children who had stronger emotionally tinged parasocial relationships with the character and who received contingent responses learned the math rule best. Click here to read the full study.

Curious George: Transfer from Virtual to Physical Objects Study

We investigated how early Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics exposure to a two-dimensional Curious George app can lead to better understanding of a three-dimensional task.  Preschool-aged children played one of two Curious George apps or were not exposed to any app.  We are interested in age and gender differences in how well children play the app and in how well they transfer that learning to the three-dimensional task. Click here to see a presentation of the findings.

Building Meaningful Parasocial Relationships Between Toddlers and Media Characters to Teach Early Math Skills

Very young children have difficulty transferring what they view onscreen to their offscreen worlds. This study examined whether familiarizing toddlers with a character would improve toddlers’ performance on a subsequent seriation task. Toddlers were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) a familiarized character condition where toddlers viewed character-based videos and engaged in character-based play over a 3-month period before viewing the seriation video demonstration; (2) an unfamiliarized character condition where the toddler only saw the seriation video demonstration; and (3) a no-exposure control group where the toddler did not see the seriation video demonstration or have any involvement with the character. All toddlers were tested on the same seriation task at age 21 months, with the familiarized character group beginning the study at age 18 months and the other groups participating only at age 21 months. Toddlers in the familiarized character condition, but not the unfamiliarized character condition, completed the seriation task significantly better than the no-exposure control group. Within the familiarized character condition, toddlers who nurtured the character during play subsequently had higher seriation scores.The results suggest that meaningful relationships with media characters can help toddlers learn early mathematical skills.

Click here to read the full study.

Personalized Interactive Characters for Toddlers’ Learning of Seriation from a Video Presentation

Children’s media is rooted in relationships with onscreen characters. In this study, 18-month-old
toddlers were initially exposed to one of two unfamiliar interactive media characters for 3
months. Conditions varied whether the character was personalized to them or not. At age 21
months, toddlers were tested on a seriation task that was presented onscreen by the character and
compared to the performance of a 21-month-old control group who did not view a video
demonstration (Total N = 48). Toddlers learned significantly more from the personalized
character, but not from the non-personalized character, when compared to the control group.
Children in the personalized condition also increased in parasocial, nurturing behaviors directed
at the character during play sessions, and these scores were linked to better seriation
performance. The results suggest an important role for social relationships with interactive
characters to teach early seriation, math skills.

Click here to read the full study.