Dr. Katharina Diergarten
Associated member: June 2007 - February 2010
Dissertation title: Media competency and processing of emotional film contents in children.
Abstract: Nowadays, children start using many different kinds of media at a very young age.For that reason scientific and political discussions require teaching a competent use of these media early on. This dissertation project aims at investigating an important aspect of media competency: the competency to understand medial sign systems. A pilot study showed a continuous growth of media competency in children aged between four and seven years (see figure). A longitudinal study shall investigate the connection between medial sign competency and other educational skills, and between medial sign competency and the processing of emotional stimuli in film. Two additional experiments are supposed to discover weather children draw inferences about movie characters’ emotional states and in what way this is influenced by the child’s media competency.
The studies are integrated in a project granted by the German research foundation DFG under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schneider and Prof. Dr. Gerhild Nieding at the University of Würzburg, in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Peter Ohler at the University of Chemnitz.
Principal investigator:
Prof. Dr. Gerhild Nieding, Dept. Psychology IV, Röntgenring 10, 97070 Würzburg
Current position:
Dept. Psychology IV, Röntgenring 10, 97070 Würzburg
https://www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/paepsy/mitarbeiter/dr-katharina-diergarten/
