Tufts study suggests infants respond to television

A new study by a Tufts psychology professor published in The Journal ofChild Development suggests that children as young as ten and 12 months old are emotionally affected by what they watch on television. The study was performed by psychology professor Dr. Donna Mumme, who is an expert in child behavior

According to Mumme, the study is an important step in determining how infants use emotional signals and other non-verbal cues to learn about their environments and the people in them. Her research adds to the evidence that children can perceive differences in social and emotional behavior much earlier than some had believed.

By the age of 12 months, infants can begin to respond to emotional stimuli on television. This suggests that parents may want to keep an eye on what their babies' watch as it could significantly impact their behavior.

Mumme's study marks important progress in the fairly new field of infant emotional communication and reflects an infant's tendency to mimic the behavior of others. The study recorded the physical and emotional reactions of ten and 12-month-old babies when they watched a 20 second videotape of an actress reacting to a toy stimulus.

When the actress showed signs of fear towards a toy, the baby consequently avoided the toy and was more likely to act worried. Conversely, if the actress was excited about the toy, the infant were more apt to play with it.

Undergraduate and graduate students at Tufts are participating in follow-up research that includes studying babies' memories of research assistants.

The next step is to determine if "emotion is focused around one event," Mumme said, and "what piece the baby takes away from the interaction."

The experiments revealed that the 12 month olds responded more positively in general. But "the ten month olds' results were not as good."

According to Mumme, "babies remember events, and those emotional reactions influence physical reactions right away. It would be more interesting to see if they remember these reactions after a certain time period."

The study has far ranging implications for child psychology, Mumme said. "The main importance [of this research] is that all are aware that babies are aware of their surroundings," Mumme said. "They are sensitive to negative emotions, interested in people, and take a lot of information from their surroundings."

Researchers are still trying to determine why the ten month olds did not respond as positively to the experiments as the 12 month olds. "We don't know whether it was because they just didn't understand or had a hard time with the video," Mumme said.