is section the major conclusions presented in the preceding three sections will be summarized. Also, implications of this review of children's understanding of television will be considered in light of current policy concerns. Section I presented a brief description of cognitive development theory, particularly the work of Jean Piaget and critiques of his approach to examining the development of children's thinking abilities. A major conclusion of this review is that cognitive development theory and research argues strongly for the notion that children's thinking and interpretative abilities change radically as they grow older. Children's attention to and interpretations of the physical and social world follow several dimensions of change. First is the decrease in perceptual boundedness, or the ability to go beyond immediate perception for cues to assess objects as children grow older. A second major dimension of cognitive growth is the development of decentration or the use of multiple dimensions of objects when assessing them. Third, there is evidence that a major dimension of growth in children's interpretations of other people and the social world is the movement from more egocentric ways of perceiving and understanding others to mutual perspective-taking in understanding people's behavior. Critiques of Piagetian approaches to cognitive development theory also have several implications for approaching research on children's understanding of television. First, one should be wary of making inferences from more theoretical literature on children's general cognitive development to the specific instance of children's responses to television. Second, the particular tasks and measures utilized in television research should be assessed in light of their appropriateness to the children's ability levels. Third, the critiques suggest that stress should be placed on discussions of age-related changes in children's understanding of television as...
