Constructions of mental representations in the audiovisual mode of discourse.
Item
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Title
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Constructions of mental representations in the audiovisual mode of discourse.
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Identifier
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AAI9732915
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identifier
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9732915
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Creator
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Fantaousakis, Chrysoula K. E.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Joseph Glick
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Developmental | Psychology, Cognitive
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Abstract
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This project studied the relationship between internal cognitive and external narrative forms of representation by examining children's interpretations of television content. It investigated how television mediates children's comprehension through specialized production conventions. It assumed that children's comprehension is influenced by internal and external factors and that such conventions guide young viewers through the zone of proximal development by scaffolding their cognitive behavior.;To investigate this scaffolding process, 90 pre-kindergartners, kindergartners and second-graders (half girls and half boys) individually viewed three segments from a cartoon. These segments varied with respect to topical content and overall complexity as determined by the presence or absence of facilitative narrative features. It also examined a specific cinematic technique, the dissolve, and children's understanding of its syntactic properties. Following Salomon's notions of "supplanting" and "eliciting," the complexity of certain dissolves was varied by presenting them: at the normal pace; at a slower pace; and transformed into cuts.;The results showed limited-condition and extensive-segment effects. Specifically, variations in the complexity of the dissolves limited those effects on the perceptual level. However, variations in the complexity of the segments' overall textuality extended those effects on the perceptual and conceptual levels. These limited-condition effects did not support Salomon's conception of "supplanting" while the extensive-segment effects supported his conception of "eliciting" by demonstrating developmental and experiential variations.;Four levels of narrative continuity were identified that indicated processes in the perceptual, conceptual, and social-affective domains worked in concert and influenced the children's interpretations of content. The interaction established between these psychological processes and the children's narrative skills demonstrated that the degree of continuity in their accounts was related to their cognitive development as well as to their familiarity with the sequential story-like forms of social discourse.;The complex interweaving of these multilinear psychological processes revealed that the developmental variations in children's narrative representations were related to the fine-tuning of the communicative and psychological processes. As the developmental and textual variations showed, the children as active viewers and the medium as a social institution negotiated the construction of narrational meanings.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
