There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
The ability to transfer learning across contexts is an adaptive skill that develops
rapidly during early childhood. Learning from television is a specific instance of
transfer of learning between a 2-Dimensional (2D) representation and a 3-Dimensional
(3D) object. Understanding the conditions under which young children might accomplish
this particular kind of transfer is important because by 2 years of age 90% of US
children are viewing television on a daily basis. Recent research shows that children
can imitate actions presented on television using the corresponding real-world objects,
but this same research also shows that children learn less from television than they
do from live demonstrations until they are at least 3 years old; termed the video
deficit effect. At present, there is no coherent theory to account for the video deficit
effect; how learning is disrupted by this change in context is poorly understood.
The aims of the present review are (1) to review the conditions under which children
transfer learning between 2D images and 3D objects during early childhood, and (2)
to integrate developmental theories of memory processing into the transfer of learning
from media literature using Hayne's (2004) developmental representational flexibility
account. The review will conclude that studies on the transfer of learning between
2D and 3D sources have important theoretical implications for general developmental
theories of cognitive development, and in particular the development of a flexible
representational system, as well as policy implications for early education regarding
the potential use and limitations of media as effective teaching tools during early
childhood.