at Harvard University and in New York City in the summer of 1968. These chapters outline the philosophy behind Sesame Street. The show's creators made assumptions about teaching and held the unconventional view that learning can be unintentional and enjoyable. Finally, they decided that although Sesame Street was set in an urban setting, they would avoid depicting more negativity than what was already present in the child's environment. Lesser states, "With all its raucousness and slapstick humor, Sesame Street became a sweet show, and its staff maintains that there is nothing wrong in that". The researchers developed a "Writer's Notebook" for the show's writers and producers to serve as a bridge between curriculum goals and script development. Lesser connects the show's production techniques—including the use of music, humor (especially slapstick humor), and animation—with educational goals. Lesser emphasizes the importance of characters, both human and Muppet, to sustain children's attention. According to Lesser, Sesame Street combines four elements to sustain attention: Muppets, the cast of live adults and children on the set, animation, and live-action film. According to Lesser, before the creation of Sesame Street, children's reactions to educational television was ignored; this marked the first time that they were studied to evaluate and improve the show's content and efficacy. Lesser reports that approximately 10-15 percent of the CTW's initial two-year budget of $8 million was spent on research. He relates the priorities for pre-production research, which he called "summative evaluation". Using outside research groups like the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the Workshop wanted to ascertain if watching the show made any difference. They were particularly interested in comparing the show's effect on children from different socio-economic groups, and if viewing conditions affected its effectiveness. Lesser states, "This became the first time in television's 25-year history that child-watching was systematically applied over a sustained period to the design of a televised series for children". Lesser describes the new methods researcher Edward Palmer created to study the effects Sesame Street had on its young viewers; for example, the "distractor", in which a slide projector was placed next to a television set and adjusted to change slides every eight seconds. The researchers recorded when children in their study moved their attention away from the television to the projector, and the data collected were analyzed. Segments were removed based upon the information gathered. "This was the first time in television's history that the children