Do Animations Impair Executive Function in Young Children? Effects Of Animation Types On The Executive Function Of Children Aged Four To Seven Years Part 1

Abstract: 

This study used a three (animation types: educational, entertainment, and control groups) × four (age group: four-, five-, six-, and seven-year-olds) between-group experimental design to investigate the short-term effects of animation type and age on each component of children’s executive function (EF) (inhibitory control [IC], cognitive flexibility [CF], and working memory [WM]). 

Inhibitory control and memory are two very important functions in the human brain. Inhibitory control helps us control our behavior, suppress impulses and emotions, and allow us to focus better and think clearly. Memory is our ability to record and retain information, which is of great significance to individuals and society.

Recent research shows a strong connection between inhibitory control and memory. Studies have found that people who take frequent memory tests perform better on inhibitory control. This is because memory and inhibitory control are coordinated through the brain's prefrontal cortex. The development and strengthening of this area allow us to better control our attention and behavior.

Therefore, we can improve our inhibitory control and memory through some methods. These methods include: exercising to increase oxygen supply to the brain, maintaining good sleep quality to enhance memory storage, and developing excellent reading and writing habits to improve concentration and thinking skills.

In short, inhibitory control and memory influence each other, and they play a vital role in human survival and social activities. As long as we train and improve them from a positive perspective, we can make ourselves better and more successful people. It can be seen that we need to improve memory, and Cistanche deserticola can significantly improve memory because Cistanche deserticola is a traditional Chinese medicinal material that has many unique effects, one of which is to improve memory. The efficacy of minced meat comes from the various active ingredients it contains, including acid, polysaccharides, flavonoids, etc. These ingredients can promote brain health in various ways.

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One hundred twenty-six kindergarten and first-grade elementary school students in a city in Henan Province of China were selected for the experimental study. The results showed that briefly watching animation affected children’s EF. Specifically, watching entertainment cartoons weakened children’s IC and CF, while cartoons did not affect children’s WM.

The moderating effect of age in the relationship between animation type and EFs was non-significant. This study suggests that researchers should focus on the uniqueness of each component of EF in children aged four to seven years, and parents should try to limit children’s viewing of animation, especially entertainment animation.

Keywords: 

educational animation; entertainment animation; executive function; short-term effect; children aged four to seven years.

1. Introduction

Executive function (EF) is the ability of individuals to use thinking skills to achieve goals, develop a set of problem-solving methods, and monitor and adjust their behavior. EF is a higher-level processing activity of the brain. 

The process allows individuals to exercise conscious control over their thoughts and actions [1]. EF generally includes inhibitory control (IC), working memory (WM), and cognitive flexibility (CF) [2]. In addition, EF in early childhood can effectively predict an individual’s behavior [3–5]. Therefore, studying the influences of EF is essential to understanding and improving people’s daily learning, work, and life.

1.1. Television and EF

The influence of the environment becomes significant in early childhood when the brain rapidly develops strong neuroplasticity [6]. Television viewing is a ubiquitous behavior for children, with many beginning to watch television in preschool or as early as infancy [7]. 

Data from a large sample of approximately 9000 children in the US found that children watched approximately four hours of television per day [8]. Chinese data on over 1000 young children showed that the proportion of children under two years of age watching television was 58.7%, rising to 93.2% between two and four years of age. On average, 19.9% of children aged two to four watch more than two hours daily [9]. 

Considering the critical influence of the environment on the development of EF in early childhood and that television exposure serves as one of the primary environments in early childhood, television exposure may play an essential role in the development of EF in early childhood. Therefore, many researchers have begun to explore the relationship between the two.

Earlier studies on television exposure have mainly concentrated on its relationship with attention-related variables. For instance, Christakis et al. found that the time spent watching television in early childhood positively predicted attention problems in middle childhood [10]. Miller et al. also found a significant positive association between television exposure time in preschoolers and their attention deficit and hyperactivity tendencies [11]. 

Further, Nathanson et al. examined the effects of viewing time and background time on EF in young children. They found a negative association between television viewing and background television exposure to EF in young children [12]. However, some studies did not find a relationship between television exposure and attention problems [13,14]. 

For example, Stevens and Mulsow found that the effect size associated with television viewing time and later attention problems in preschoolers was close to zero [15].

In response to these inconsistent results, some researchers have suggested that television content may play a more critical role in children’s EF development than television time [16,17]. As a result, researchers have begun to focus on the effects of educational and entertainment television programs on children’s EF and other cognitive functions.

Some studies found that viewing entertainment-based programs resulted in young children showing poorer cognitive responses than viewing educational programs [18,19]. An experimental study by Li on preschoolers aged three to six also found that children who watched entertainment programs for a short period had significantly lower EF scores than children in the educational and control groups [20]. 

In addition, Yang et al. used a questionnaire to explore the relationship between different animation types and children’s EF. They found a critical positive association between educational animation and preschoolers’ EF [21]. However, some studies have found different results. For example, Lillard et al. had four-year-old children watch entertainment animation, watch educational animation, or perform autonomous drawing (control group) and then tested subsequent performance on EF tasks. 

They found that the EF scores of the animation-viewing group were lower than those of the control group, but the differences between animation groups were non-significant. In other words, the EF performance of four-year-old children temporarily diminished when watching entertainment or educational animation [22]. Moreover, Zimmerman and Christakis examined the relationship between three types of animated programs—educational, nonviolent, and violent entertainment—and attention problems. 

They found that viewing educational programs before the age of three years was not associated with attention problems five years later, whereas viewing violent and nonviolent entertainment programs before that age was significantly associated with attention problems five years later [23].

1.2. The Current Study

Are there short-term effects of animation type on EF in young children? Current studies have not been able to produce consistent results. Previous studies mainly focused on the impact on the overall level of EF while ignoring issues such as the independence and unique impact of each component of EF. 

In addition, several studies have found that different components of EF have different developmental trajectories and prefrontal cortex localization [24–27]. Therefore, understanding the specific effects of animation type on each component of EF in children is vital to clarify research findings, guide future research directions, and provide practical interventions. 

We selected educational and entertainment animations and used drawing as a control group to answer these questions. The study explored whether viewing different types of cartoons affects children’s EF.

The Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model suggests that the process of media influence on children may exhibit age differences in the effects of media. Nonetheless, this area has a dearth of research [28,29]. For example, one researcher found no significant relationship between television program viewing and later attention problems in five-year-olds [15]. 

Therefore, can young children of different ages show different levels of EF after watching different types of animation for short periods? Answering this question is essential to better understand the sensitive period of influence of animation types on children’s cognitive development. Therefore, this study used an experimental approach to explore the short-term effects of age and animation type on the three components (IC, WM, CF) of four- to seven-year-old children’s EF.

2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Participants

The number of participants for this experiment was based on previous relevant literature [22,30]. Since the number of participants in each condition in the above studies was 11–15, we aimed to include 12 participants per condition for 144 participants. 

One hundred fifty-two children from two kindergartens and one first-grade class in an elementary school in a city in Henan Province of China and their parents were included using whole-class sampling. After excluding 26 children whose parents were temporarily absent or unable to complete the questionnaire, 126 participants were validly enrolled. 

The selected students included 38 four-year-olds (M = 49.26 ± 2.50 months; 19 boys and 19 girls); 29 five-year-olds (M = 58.34 ± 2.33 months; 17 boys and 12 girls); 32 six-year-olds (M = 71.93 ± 2.91 months; 16 boys and 16 girls); and 27 seven-year-olds (M = 82.00 ± 3.89 months; 15 boys and 12 girls). The children were randomly allocated to the entertainment group (40), education group (43), or control group (43).

In addition, we conducted a sensitivity power analysis (assumed α = 0.05, power = 0.80). We found that with 12 participants per condition, the minimum effect size for all factors for which we could detect effects (main and interaction) was f = 0.30, which was above the medium level of effect (0.25 < f < 0.40).

The study protocol followed the American Psychological Association’s ethical guidelines. It was approved by the principals of the kindergarten and primary schools and by the institutional review board of Henan University. All parents provided informed consent. The study complied with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

2.2. Video Material Screening

2.2.1. Criteria for Video Selection

In the early stage of the study, a questionnaire was used to collect information on the content of animations watched by preschoolers. Based on the cartoon characters, popularity, and reference to the results of previous studies on program selection [20], “Cat and Mouse” (abbreviated as “Cat”) and “Mickey’s Wonderful House” (abbreviated as “Mi”) were selected as the experimental material for this study. 

This study presented “Mi” for 11 min and 40 s on a screen size of 720 × 576 pixels, referring to previous studies’ criteria for selecting video clip duration [16]. In “Mi,” Mickey and his friends try to find lost party hats by communicating and collaborating. Each party hat had a different number and color. The color scheme was designed to help children master the colors and numbers. 

Two episodes of “Cat” (“Mouse Catching Brothers” and “Teaching in the Doctor’s Class”) were selected for editing and synthesis to match with “Mi” in terms of duration. “Cat” lasted 11 min and 10 s, a screen size of 720 × 480 pixels, and a unified compressed audio-video format interleave for the two pieces of material.

The content of the video material was examined for variability by rating according to Zimmerman and Christakis’ criteria for defining educational and entertainment categories [23]. Educational programs included social and cognitive information features, with social information features referring to instruction and teaching content through communication or appropriate behaviors (e.g., solidarity and mutual aid) and cognitive information features referring to teaching content similar to that in school contexts (e.g., other school readiness skills such as counting and comparing sizes). 

Ten psychology graduate students were required to rate the content of the programs children watched based on the program's definitions. Each person provided a score of 0 or 1 to judge the cognitive (10 features) and social information (10 features) characteristics of the video material, with 0 representing the absence of this feature and 1 representing its presence. 

The total score was considered the video content feature score, with a range of 0–20. By conducting an independent samples t-test on the data, the results showed that “Mi” was significantly different from “Cat” in terms of content feature scores (t = 14.20, p < 0.001), and “Mi” (M = 13.90, SD = 0.88) had a higher score than “Cat” (M = 5.30, SD = 1.70). This result indicated that “Cat” met the criteria of entertainment animation and “Mi” met the criteria of educational animation.

2.2.2. Differential Test of Formal Features of Video Material

Considering that formal features of animation may confuse the effect of animation content on EF, it is necessary to match and control the features of video material. Referring to previous studies’ results and measurement criteria [22,31,32], two formal features of video material—pace and fantasy—were selected for evaluation and control. 

Pace refers to the number of times a complete scene change occurs in the video (e.g., from the pool to the bedroom), and for fast-paced programs, scenes change entirely every 11 s on average [31]. Fantasy refers to transforming objects or characters in impossible ways, such as shape or identity, that are common in our lives but occur against the laws of physics. 

Ten psychology graduate students rated the pace and fantasy of the video material on a seven-point scale based on the above definitions of complete scene changes per minute and fantasy events per minute. 

An independent samples t-test of the data showed that “Mi” was not significantly different from “Cat” in terms of pace or fantasy score (space = 1.05, p > 0.05; fantasy = 0.45, p > 0.05), which indicates that the two types of video material have similar pace and fantasy.

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