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Curious George (Howard et al., 2008) is still a very popular kids’ program. In the program George is a monkey who lives with the “Man in the Yellow Hat” and behaves with personified actions. It is almost like George is the “naughty kid” and the man is the loving parent in a normal household. All good preschool children’s programs include several factors that make them successful and long-running, which can be explained by the included content, and the medium through which it is delivered.
From a social cognitive, educational and multimedia points of view—let’s take a closer look at George.
First, the program contains information that is of quality and is appropriate for developing children (Van Evra, 2004). In one particular episode, George is seen planting his own carrot and making good use of it by feeding it to lost hungry bunnies. Likewise in this episode, George finds a squirrel in his garden. He nicely explains that the squirrel cannot store his nuts in his garden—instead, the squirrel should use a tree. He also makes a “no squirrels” sign afterwards, which adds to the comedic relief of the program. If the same situation happens in a program for older children such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Breadwinners, or the like, the squirrel might be treated with some jokes or ejected out of the garden in a humorous manner. These programs are more appropriate for older children age (around 6+ years). This appropriateness in Curious George leads into a second key factor to a successful children’s media related to caregiver co-viewing. We could see the ladder may have an influence on developing young minds without helpful conversations from caregiving during co-viewing.
Secondly, parents of developing children are more willing to allow their kids to watch programs with a more educational spin on them. Kids can learn language skills, math skills and social skills by watching the right TV shows. In this episode of Curious George (Howard et al., 2008), children not only learn about the basics of planting seeds, but also learn that no matter how much you like something, it is occasionally necessary to give it up, as George did to feed the hungry lost rabbits when no other food was available. That is a very important skill for kids who tend to be more egocentric than adults as often cited by Piaget (1997). Another lesson involves taking the seeds out of the bag, watering them every once in a while and patiently waiting for them to grow. Finally, a more important lesson occurs when George decides to give up his carrot to the bunnies so that they can stay put, buying time for George to bring his friend Bill to the cave with his bunny crate. It was a difficult decision because he was very proud of his perfect carrot. Children learn vicariously through television and they may feel the struggle and strife that George was going through (Bandura, 1999) and it even is a teachable moment for parents to relate how George feels to their own child’s experiences.
Finally, the show contains “rich content” from the beginning until the end (Van Evra, 2004). Techniques include presenting the information in multiple modalities to enrich the program with images and sounds (Mayer, 2001). When explaining the process of planting carrot seeds, Bill tells George how to do it without showing him. This is an excellent example of multiple modalities for children to witness. George goes home and plants the carrots incorrectly. When the “Man in the Yellow Hat” comes to the rescue, he explains the steps with both of them working on the garden—he shows George how to plant. The “Man in the Yellow Hat” demonstrates how to do certain skills first and then lets George. Even though George is not able to speak, he still makes some positive sounds to keep the representation more vivid. This can be great because children may be in situations where they cannot articulate their needs, and George presents an example where this is possible. Presenting only in words is not as strong as presenting in multiple modalities depicted through this example (Mayer, 2005) even more so because the entire program is a link to both auditory and visual information. Children may then be more interested in planting seeds based on the feelings of fun that are presented in this program and perhaps they are more likely to remember the sequencing of steps (a working and long-term memory feature).
Bandura’s (1986, 1994, 2002) social cognitive theory emphasizes the role of models and vicarious examples in shaping the way we think. He indicated that an individual’s behavior could be likely formulated indirectly by viewing other models of behavior. Viewers can learn by observing others and vicarious experiences are the typical way human beings interact with their surrounding environment. Bandura (1994) describes modeling as two processes of response acquisition that may have as much impact as direct experience. The ability to use this information or symbols sets humans apart from the limited stimulus-response world of animals. Humans interpret stimuli, as opposed to just responding to them. We use symbols in order to understand the world. We are able to regulate and reflect on not only our own actions, but in a vicarious sense on the actions of others. Since the availability of media has increased over the years, children are likely to be shaped by what they see as examples… through television and mobile devices. By providing quality programming and co-viewing with the child while they process the action, a parent can be an active participant in a child’s quality television consumption.
Television, as a multimedia artifact, includes visual, auditory and sometimes textual components depending on their combinations and abundance (Mayer, 2001). This multimodality of information is presented in a manner that would lead to an increase in effective working memory capacity according to Baddley (1999). The working memory includes an auditory loop for processing speech and a visual-spatial sketchpad for processing visual information. According to this theory, both are independent and limited in capacity. By using them together and presenting information with multiple modalities, working memory capacity should increase (Baddley, 1999; Penney, 1989 as cited in Leahy & Sweller, J. 2011). Many studies have shown that auditory and visual information presented together ease processing and is far better that a unimodal format (Ginns, 2005). However, while the mode of presentation of information is optimal, the intrinsic nature of today’s television (the actual concepts and visual imagery) work to increase a viewer’s cognitive load. To highlight this a bit more—cognitive load refers to the load on working memory during instruction, which is not limited to classroom setting (Sweller, Van Merrienboer & Paas, 1998). Kids as well as adults can be easily overloaded; therefore keeping it simple for children is essential for successful children’s shows.
References:
Baddeley, A. D. (1999). Essentials of human memory. Psychology Press. Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A. (2002). Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communication. In Bryant, J. & Zillman, D. Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bandura, A. (1994). Social cognitive theory of mass communication. In J. Bryant & D. Zillman (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 61-90). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1986.
DiRaffaele, G. & Borst, S. (2014). Breadwinners [Television series]. Nickelodeon Animation Studio.
Ginns, P. (2005). Meta-analysis of the modality effect. Learning & Instruction, 15(4), 313-331.
Hillenburg. S. & Tibbit, P. (1999). SpongeBob SquarePants [Television series]. Nickelodeon Animation Studio.
Howard, R., Grazer, B., Kirschner, D. & Shapiro, J. (2008). Ice Station Monkey/The Perfect Carrot [Television series episode]. In Curious George. NBCUniversal Television Distribution.
Leahy, W., & Sweller, J. (2011). Cognitive load theory, modality of presentation and the transient information effect. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25(6), 943-951.
Piaget, J. (1997). The moral judgment of the child. Simon and Schuster.
Mayer, R. (2001). A Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning. In Mayer, R., Multimedia Learning. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Penney, C. G. (1989). Modality effects and the structure of short-term verbal memory. Memory & Cognition, 17(4), 398-422.
Sweller, J., Van Merrienboer, J. J., & Paas, F. G. (1998). Cognitive architecture and instructional design. Educational psychology review, 10(3), 251-296
Van Evra, J. (2004). Television and child development. Routledge.
