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Most studies about computers and education have had serious flaws, while the results of the better studies have been largely neutral or negative. Dr. Zajonc feels that most studies have been compromised by poor protocols, limited sample size, etc. Those studies that appear to have sound methodology have indicated no effects or even negative ones. Dr. Zajonc feels that some of the best research is probably being done inside corporations, which can use this knowledge about human perception to influence consumer choices. He cites a group of studies that showed that human eyes are sensitive to movement, with it being almost impossible for people not to look when there is movement within their field of vision. He claims advertisers, particularly online, now make use of this, with (for example) pop-up windows and animation that are, indeed, hard to avoid.
Little is known about the short- and long-term positive or negative effects of technology use in schools. The federal government and independent foundations have not provided the funding necessary to explore, in an unbiased way, many of the critical issues with the thoroughness they deserve. The strongest finding and recommendation of the President's Panel on Education Technology was that there was little good research regarding the value and potential dangers of educational technology. Despite this finding, the federal government has since spent very little money funding such research. Dr. Zajonc considers this a real failure of responsibility considering how much media is now being directed at children, when the effects of such have been largely unexplored. "There is no clinical or experimental data to back up the importance of these technologies for education, much less exploring any kind of damage that might be inadvertently done along the way."
While the empirical data might not yet be available, there are theoretical foundations available for exploring these issues, upon which future empirical study can build. Some of these theories suggest that early environment can have a tremendous influence over sensory development. Dr. Zajonc believes there are theoretical ways in which we can understand the impact of visual media on consciousness, how we think, and how we perceive our world. Recent studies in neuroscience suggest that environment shapes early perceptions, while animal studies with primates and lower life forms show that changing the environment in fairly dramatic ways will change the visual system. Through evolution we have developed a coupling with our environment that is extremely strong. This connection is forged during the very early years of life and used implicitly and tacitly through the rest of our lives.
"One of the concerns I have is that as we fill our world with these mediated impressions, not ones which are drawn from a natural world, a natural social world, we do so unconsciously, or even manipulatively." Dr. Zajonc suggests that we could begin to create tacit structures in the mind that operate throughout life that could develop into real psychological damage for the adult. While Dr. Zajonc feels that a great deal of empirical work is needed to support this framework, he believes strongly in the logic behind the theory and the limited animal studies that seem to suggest its validity. Studies that examine specific applications of this theory, particularly with children and new media technologies like the Internet and virtual reality, are now desperately needed.
"I think if you examine recent neuroscience, cognitive scientific investigations of visual medium and visual perception it would argue that you really should be very careful; it is a powerful medium and it couples directly into all sorts of affective and visceral parts of the human physiology. To simply presume that this is some sort of external reality that is not going to effect us very much, that is just going to provide us content in an interesting way is extremely naïve. The more hours that our children are in front of these machines the more you need to be increasingly careful."
As in J.J. Gibson's theory of perception, Dr. Zajonc believes that content, viewed through our senses, has a direct impact on the human being; he feels that there is a level of "direct perception" not mediated by higher-level computation and cognition. From this, individuals enact the world outside inwardly and incorporate it into themselves. In the course of this, you exercise certain neurophysiology structures such that they are reinforced over time. "When a child watches a television program, they are presented with a particular, narrow projection of the world that will reinforce for them particular modalities of cognition and mental structures over and against those that would come from real world activities that would integrate, for example, motor skills and visual in ways that were more than a mouse click." While Dr. Zajonc thinks it is likely that these effects probably attenuate over time, he feels young children are especially vulnerable, because they have not yet developed the higher-level functions that can cognitively override the lower direct perceptions.
Dr. Zajonc is not an active researcher in the areas of education, psychology, or technology. He has been a physicist at Amherst College since 1978, mainly researching quantum phenomena. He has become involved in issues of the effects of technology, however, through a variety of venues. In 1981, he founded the Hartsbrook School, a Waldorf School in Western Massachusetts. Through the evolution of the school, he has had to wrestle with issue of incorporating technology into the school's curriculum. In his work as a researcher and professor, he uses information and communications technologies extensively. And, like many parents, he became interested in the effects of technology on his own children.
In the mid 1990s, he began speaking at conferences, first at Columbia University and then elsewhere, about the place of the computer in education. He authored several short papers on the subject soon afterward. At about the same time, Dr. Zajonc left academia for a short period and began work as a program director at the Fetzer Institute. While there, he commissioned a study on the impact of visual media on consciousness. While less concentrated on individual uses of technology, the study attempted to address, from a scientific basis, a theoretical framework and an empirical base from which to address specific questions about technology use and mental development. At the time, and even now, Dr. Zajonc feels there are "relatively few unbiased comprehensive tests, even from a clinical or empirical point of view, about the efficacy of computer technology in instruction."
Dr. Zajonc is far from a Luddite. He feels it is most important to research the effects of early childhood use, because theory suggests that by upper elementary and high school the real dangers have mostly passed and, with appropriate use, schools, teachers, and students can make good use of technology. "I have a very strong endorsement for your project, a very high skepticism, and many, many deep worries and concerns. It is based not on being a cognitive scientist, but on reviewing that literature, working in education from kindergarten through higher ed, and knowing the technology first hand over many years. I am very, very concerned."
Zajonc, Arthur and George Greenstein. The Quantum Challenge: Modern Research on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Jones and Bartlett, Sudbury, Massachusetts, 1997.
Zajonc , Arthur. Catching The Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind. Oxford University Press, New York, 1993.