cter when paired with a TV program character in eight out of 10 comparisons. On the other hand, nearly all of the seven-year-old children they interviewed could recognize the commercial characters when presented with the 10 paired comparisons. Furthermore, when asked to choose the picture of a character who shows products on television, nearly all of the four- and seven- ear-old subjects were correct in recognizing the television characters in eight of 10 paired comparisons. Nevertheless, it is difficult to equate such perceptual discriminations as evidence of conceptual understanding of the functional differences between programs and commercials. While children may be able to recognize perceptual features of commercials, such as characters in commercials, it is an inferential leap to assume this is evidence of understanding the purpose of commercials. Most tests of conceptual understanding of the distinctions between programs and commercials have relied on verbal measures of children's articulation of differences. For instance, Ward and Wackman (1973) report that 79 percent of five- to eight-year-olds they interviewed distinguished the two types of programming in largely perceptual terms; that is the children recognized that commercials and programs have different characters and are of different lengths. On the other hand, these authors report that 73 percent of nine- to 12-year-olds offered functional differences in making the distinction, such as that commercials tried to sell products and sponsored programs. Even lower estimates of functional discriminations are reported by Giannino and Zuckerman (1977): Only 12 percent of the seven-year-olds and 25 percent of the 10-year-olds they interviewed could articulate that commercials try to sell products. In summary, awareness of the distinction between programs and commercials appears to proceed from perceptual discrimination (evidenced as early as age four in attentional patterns) throug...
