ABSTRACT

During typical childhood interactions with screen-media, two features are prominent. First, input is dominated by audio-visual signals and second, these predominately provide children with ready-made images, potentially negating effortful mental imagery construction. We present a two-year longitudinal study on a sample of 109 preschool children. We endeavoured to measure media usage and mental imagery development in a differentiated manner, also taking account of control variables and purpose of media use (learning vs. entertainment). Results indicated that children who viewed more media had worse mental imagery skill. Active media usage (e.g. gaming, tablets) and total screen time linked to lower mental imagery performance. Further, both mental images in the visual and haptic modalities appeared equally affected. Findings are discussed in terms of shaping early educational experiences with respect to virtual and three dimensional reality.

摘要

在典型的童年时期与屏幕媒体的互动中，有两个特点很突出。首先，输入以视听信号为主，其次，这些主要为儿童提供现成的图像，可能会否定费力的心理图像构建。我们对 109 名学龄前儿童的样本进行了为期两年的纵向研究。我们努力以差异化的方式衡量媒体使用和心理意象发展，同时考虑控制变量和媒体使用目的（学习与娱乐）。结果表明，观看更多媒体的儿童心理意象能力较差。活跃的媒体使用（例如游戏、平板电脑）和总屏幕时间与较低的心理意象表现有关。此外，视觉和触觉模式中的心理图像似乎同样受到影响。