This is a continuation of a study in which extensive questionnaire, testing, TV viewing diary, and observation data were obtained from 334 five-year-old children and their families. A major part of the study involved observation of TV viewing at home by means of automated time-lapse video equipment which videotaped the family TV viewing area and the ongoing TV program. Over 6000 hours of TV viewing data were thus collected. The proposal is for data reduction and analysis. Issues examined in the study include: a detailed description of TV viewing behavior as it occurs in the home; assessments of the accuracy of home TV viewing diaries and other parental estimates of children's TV viewing behavior; detailed examinations of patterns of attention to TV, relationships between children's attentional abilities and television viewing patterns; analysis of the distance from the TV children typically choose for viewing; relationships between gender development and amount of TV viewing. The data reduction of the time-lapse videotapes incorporates a novel computer-assisted rating procedure.
