Immediate impact of fantastical television content on children’s executive functions

Abstract

Recent research has suggested that particular content of television programmes, such as watching fantastical scenes, can have negative consequences on cognitive functions in young children. We examined the effects of watching fantastical programmes on executive functions measured at both pre-and post-television viewing. Eighty 5-to 6year-old children participated and were randomized into either fantastical or nonfantastical conditions. They completed inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning tasks both before and after watching either the brief fantastical or nonfantastical television clip. Whilst there were no differences between the groups at pretest on any of the cognitive measures, children in the fantastical condition were poorer on inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility tasks at the post-test session. Watching fantastical television content, even briefly, seems to disrupt cognitive function performance in young children across a broad range of aspects of executive function Statement of contribution

Viewing Fantastical Events in Animated Television Shows: Immediate Effects on Chinese Preschoolers’ Executive Function

“…The results of this epoch-by-epoch analysis expanded the findings of both Experiment 1 and 2, which demonstrated that the high fantasy group experienced impaired EF immediately after viewing Tom. These findings support earlier studies (Lillard and Peterson, 2011;Lillard et al, 2015a,b;Rhodes et al, 2020) by showing that frequent fantastical events in video programs for preschoolers consume cognitive resources and negatively impact EF. The findings also take this line of research further to show that a high level of Coxy-Hb, a measure of the use of cognitive resources, was associated with observable post-viewing EF impairment on behavioral tasks.…”

“…The results of Experiment 1 support the hypothesis that a higher frequency of fantastical events would predict lower EF, assessed with behavioral measures of the ability to keep information in short term memory and to manipulate it, inhibitory control over action, and cognitive flexibility. The findings of Experiment 1 add to the literature by providing evidence that Chinese preschoolers watching video programs with a high frequency of fantastical events also demonstrate the immediate post-viewing EF decline that has been documented among United States and United Kingdom preschoolers (Lillard and Peterson, 2011;Lillard et al, 2015a,b;Rhodes et al, 2020). In other words, on the behavioral level, Chinese preschoolers had EF disruption that was similar to what the Western samples experienced in a similar TV viewing condition.…”

“…Previous research in the United States and the United Kingdom documented that fantastical events on TV disrupted preschoolers' and kindergarteners' EF performance on behavioral tasks (Lillard and Peterson, 2011;Lillard et al, 2015b;Rhodes et al, 2020). Experiment 1 extended this research by examining whether these children's Chinese counterparts also showed impaired EF immediately after viewing fantastical events on TV.…”

“…Chinese programming for children relies heavily on United States importation (Tu, 2009). In addition, using United States videos provides a connection between earlier studies (e.g., Lillard and Peterson, 2011;Lillard et al, 2015b;Rhodes et al, 2020) and the current study. By using United States videos, the results of the current research can be interpreted within the frame of reference provided by the extant literature.…”

“…Thus, we will use the term animation throughout this paper. The children watched animations similar to those used in previous studies (Lillard and Peterson, 2011;Lillard et al, 2015b;Rhodes et al, 2020) but dubbed in Chinese. The choice to use dubbing was necessitated by the scarcity of options from the Chinese television and video market for children.…”