Getting a clear picture: young children's understanding of a televised image

Previous research has established that very young children, unlike older people, often have difficulty using a televised image as a source of information about a real event. After watching on a live video monitor as an adult in the next room hid a toy, 2-year-olds usually did not find it, but after watching directly through a window, children of this age succeeded. In the first experiment reported here, 2-year-olds could see hiding events directly and on a video monitor at the same time. This video-reality training did not improve performance on subsequent standard trials with video as the only source of information. In a second experiment, an adult demonstrated correct search behavior using video, finding a toy as the child watched on the video monitor Despite this training and assistance, most of the children did not appear to recognize the connection between a video image and reality.