264 Journal of Communication, June 2002 Do Children Learn How to Watch Television? The Impact of Extensive Experience With Blue’s Clues on Preschool Children’s Television Viewing Behavior By Alisha M. Crawley, Daniel R. Anderson, Angela Santomero, Alice Wilder, Marsha Williams, Marie K. Evans, and Jennings Bryant This is, we believe, the first investigation of the effects of experience with a particu- lar program series on children’s subsequent television viewing behavior and com- prehension. Three- to 5-year-old, regular, experienced Blue’s Clues viewers were compared to new, inexperienced viewers. In Study 1, experienced Blue’s Clues viewers looked less but overtly interacted more with a new episode of Blue’s Clues. This effect was most pronounced during recurrent format portions of the episode. They also showed greater comprehension of familiar content. Study 2 compared experienced and inexperienced viewers on viewing behavior and comprehension of an episode of a different series. Experienced Blue’s Clues viewers looked less but overtly interacted more; there were no differences in comprehension. These results suggest that a television series can teach children a style of television viewing trans- ferable to new episodes and to new series. Observations of adult television viewers indicate that there are reliable differences in attentional styles of television viewing (Bechtel, Achelpohl, & Akers, 1972; Hawkins, Pingree, Bruce, & Tapper, 1997). Some viewers, for example, are consis- Alisha M. Crawley, Daniel R. Anderson, and Marie K. Evans teach in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Angela Santomero, Alice Wilder, and Marcia Williams are with Nickelodeon, New York, New York. Jennings Bryant teaches in the Institute for Communication Research at the University of Alabama. Funding for this research was provided by Nickelodeon and the Institute for Communication Research of the University of Alabama. The authors wish to thank Lisa Mullikin, James McCollum, John Owens, Joanne Mundorf, and Stacy Smith for managing the data collection; Jennifer Berry, Elaina Costello, Kelly Meadows, and Linh Ngo for coding the videotape data for Study 1; Monica Sylvia for helping design the research materials for Study 1; Kelly Meadows, Alison Salk, Jeanne Shinskey, and Elaine Yee for coding the videotape data for Study 2; and Shalom Fisch and Sesame Workshop for supplying a copy of episode 229 of Big Bag prior to broadcast. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Daniel R. Anderson, Department of Psychology, Univer- sity of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003; email: anderson@psych.umass.edu. Copyright © 2002 International Communication Association