Approximately 100 questionnaires were distributed to parents of children in primary grades in a study that explored social correlates of the interpretative abilities of very young children in the assessment of televised narratives. The questionnaires contained over 50 questions on home use of television. The second phase of the study involved having 44 preschool children view preconstructed videotapes and answer comprehension tests. Results failed to show a significant relationship between ages of children and their understanding of characters' emotions. The study also failed to show a significant relationship between age and the ability to understand motivations, except when motives were widely separated in the narrative from their corresponding actions. No significant patterns of correlations were uncovered between the amount of television viewed by children and their performance on the six texts examined. However, the analysis did reveal a relatively strong and important pattern of negative correlations between the amount of television viewed by parents and their children's comprehension levels. The more the parents viewed television, the lower their children's comprehension levels. (HOD)