TELEVISION EXPOSURE AND CHILDRENS DECODING OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR

Two studies considered rite way in which the magnitude of exposure to television relates to children's understanding and interpretation of o thers' nonverbal behavior. In the first study, 6th graders made judgme nts regarding other children whose nonverbal facial behavior did not m atch their internal emotional state. Results showed that heavier telev ision viewers held a less differentiated, more simplistic view of the consequences of nonverbal self-presentation strategies. In the second study, children in Grades 2 through 6 made judgments of others' nonver bal expressions of emotion. As predicted, heavier television viewers w ere better at decoding others' nonverbal expressions than lighter view ers, presumably because of their greater exposure to nonverbal display s of emotion on television. In addition, nonverbal decoding skills imp roved with age.