Do Animations Impair Executive Function in Young Children? Effects Of Animation Types On The Executive Function Of Children Aged Four To Seven Years Part 2

2.3. Measures

2.3.1. Parent Questionnaire

Parents completed three questionnaires. The first questionnaire asked for basic information about the family, including family income, parents’ education level, and the sex and age of their children. 

Educational level is the degree and level of a person's education, including knowledge, skills, and values. Memory refers to the memory ability a person needs when carrying out learning and life activities. There is a close connection between the two.

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Education can also train people's thinking ability, making it more acute and in-depth, so that they can more easily and deeply understand and master the knowledge they have learned, and better apply it to solve problems. This improvement in comprehensive integration, processing, and application capabilities is of vital significance for better transformation and utilization of memory.

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The second questionnaire comprised information about their child’s exposure to animation, including how much time their child watched animation on weekends and weekdays; the age at which their child first watched animation; and the name of the most recent animation their child watched. A third questionnaire addressed the Childhood Executive Functioning Inventory (CHEXI) as a pre-test indicator of EF. 

It is ideal to use the same EF task in pre-test and post-test; however, the EF task must involve non-routine stimuli to elicit an appropriate response [33]. When a task is used twice in a short period, it loses its novelty; therefore, we used a parent report scale (CHEXI). 

This scale is consistent with the EF dimensions of this study and correlates moderately with laboratory EF measures [34,35]. Parents rated each item on a five-point Likert scale. The total score was calculated by averaging the scores of all items, with higher scores indicating more significant EF difficulties. The Cronbach’s alpha in this study was 0.78.

2.3.2. Measurement of EF

This study used a day/night task, a backward digit span task, and the Flexible Item Selection Task to test children’s IC, WM, and CF.

2.3.3. IC

Day-night task: This experimental procedure uses the classic Stroop task [36]. Children are presented with multiple pictures and asked to report “night” when they see a picture with the sun and “day” when they see a picture with the moon. The experiment was divided into two practice trials and 16 formal trials (eight daytime and eight nighttime cards each), and the experimental materials were uniformly presented randomly using slides. Children were scored 0 for incorrect responses and 1 for correct, with a score range of 0 to 16.

2.3.4. WM

Backward digit span task: Referenced from Lillard and Peterson’s digit span task [31], digits 0–9 were randomly combined into groups of two to eight digits. The tester said one digit per second, and the child needed to report them backward. For example, if the tester announces “5-7-4,” the child’s correct report is “4-7-5.” For the practice test, a two-digit sequence of tasks was provided. 

Once the participant answered one correctly or completed the exercise, they could enter the formal test, and the test was stopped when three sequences were answered incorrectly in a row. Each sequence was repeated three times. A child’s answer was considered correct if they recited the sequence backward one time with no mistakes.

Regarding scoring criteria, the span value of the number sequences correctly recited by the children was recorded. If they could not recite the two-digit sequences correctly, they scored 1 point [37]. The scoring range was 1–8 points.

2.3.5. CF

The Flexible Item Selection Task (FIST): The experimental procedure was based on Jacques and Zelazo’s FIST [38] and Willoughby and Blair’s adaptation of the FIST [39], Something’s the Same Game. The specific measurement process was: (1) Sorting pictures by size, color, and category. (2) Practice phase: first, two pictures with the same dimension were presented, and children were asked to name the dimension.

Second, a new picture was presented, and the one that agreed with the new picture in a dimension and that dimension was different from the first two pictures was selected in the first two pictures for three trials. (3) Formal stage: three pictures (containing two different dimensions, e.g., color; and size) were presented simultaneously. 

Two pictures that were identical in one dimension (color) were selected, followed by two identical in the other dimension (size), for 10 trials. The pictures were presented randomly using slides. Regarding scoring criteria, children were given 1 point for the second correct choice, with a score range of 0 to 10.

2.4. Experimental Design and Procedures

This experiment had a three (animation type: entertainment, educational, control groups) × four (age: four-, five-, six, and seven-year-olds) between-participants experimental design. The independent variables were the type of animation and the children’s age, and the dependent variable was the EF score. The experiment was administered individually, and children were assigned to different experimental conditions in a Latin square order according to their age. The experimental groups watched different types of animated videos. The control group watched no animations but was provided crayons and paper for the children to draw freely for 11 min.

The experiment was conducted by first leading the child individually into the test room to watch a video (experimental group) or draw freely (control group); the child was then told they would play some mini-games. Second, the same laptop was used to perform the EF tasks for all children; one researcher operated the procedure, and another recorded the children’s task scores. Children then needed only to follow the instructions given by the first researcher to complete the tasks. Finally, the presentation order of the three tasks in the experiment was randomized. At the end of the experiment, children were given a gift worth 10 RMB and were returned safely to the classroom.

2.5. Data Statistics and Analysis

A two-step statistical analysis of the data was performed using SPSS 20.0. In the first step, pre-test analyses were conducted using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to analyze differences in pre-test variables among the three groups of children with animation type and post-hoc tests using the Bonferroni test. 

Formal analysis was conducted in the second step, using the three components of EF as dependent variables and age and animation type as independent variables. A MANOVA was conducted using the significant variables from the first step as control variables, and Bonferroni tests were used to test for differences in main and interaction effects. Significance was defined as a p-value < 0.05.

3. Results

3.1. Pre-Test Results

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the three groups of children on each background variable. The results of the ANOVA revealed that the three groups of children had a non-significant difference in sex (F(2,123) = 0.69, p = 0.50), family income (F(2,123) = 0.35, p = 0.70), mother’s education level (F(2,123) = 1.55, p = 0.22), age of first exposure to animation (F(2,123) = 0.07, p = 0.93), hours of animation watched on weekdays (F(2,123) = 0.93, p = 0.40), hours of animation watched on weekends (F(2,123) = 2.97, p = 0.06), and pre-test EF score (F(2,123) = 0.03, p = 0.97) were non-significant. Therefore, these variables were not considered in further analyses.

3.2. Short-Term Effects of Animation Type on EF Components in Children

Table 2 shows the task scores of the three EF components in each group. Data were analyzed using a three (type of animation) × four (age) MANOVA. The analysis found significant main effects for group (Pillai’s trace = 0.25, F(6,226) = 5.45, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.13) and age (Pillai’s trace = 0.53, F(9,342) = 8.06, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.18), while the interaction effect of group and age was non-significant (Pillai’s trace = 0.15, F(18,342) = 1.00, p = 0.46, η 2 = 0.05). The EF components with significant main effects were further analyzed, and the results are as follows.

3.2.1. Effect of Animation Type on Children’s IC

For IC, the main effect of age was significant (F(3,114) = 28.93, p < 0.001. η 2 = 0.43). Post-hoc Bonferroni tests showed that the scores of the four- and five-year-old groups were significantly lower than those of the seven-year-old group (p < 0.001), and the other differences between the groups were non-significant. The main effect of animation type was also significant (F(2,114) = 13.22, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.96). Post-hoc Bonferroni tests showed that children in the entertainment group scored significantly lower for IC than those in the educational and control groups (p < 0.001). There was no difference in IC between the educational and control groups (p > 0.05; Figure 1).

3.2.2. Effect of Animation Type on Children’s WM

For WM, the main effect of age was significant (F(3,114) = 28.93, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.43). Posthoc Bonferroni tests showed that the scores of the four-year-old group were significantly lower than those of the other three age groups (p < 0.001); the scores of the five- and six-year-old groups were significantly lower than those of the seven-year-old group (p < 0.001); and the difference between the five- and seven-year-old groups was non-significant. There was no significant main effect of the type of animation (F(2,114) = 2.63, p > 0.05).

3.2.3. Effect of Animation Type on Children’s CF

For CF, the main effect of age was significant (F(3,114) = 18.05, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.18). The posthoc Bonferroni test indicated that the scores of the four-, five-, and six-year-old groups were significantly lower than those of the seven-year-old group (p < 0.001), and the difference between the other groups was non-significant (p > 0.05). 

The main effect of the animation type was significant (F(2,114) = 4.66, p = 0.01, η 2 = 0.08). The posthoc Bonferroni test showed that children’s CF scores were significantly lower in the entertainment group than in the control group (p < 0.01) and that the other differences between the groups were non-significant (p > 0.05; Figure 2).

4. Discussion

This study examined the short-term effects of animations on EF tasks in children aged four to seven years and explored the moderating role of age in this relationship. The results found that short-time viewing of different types of animation affected children's subsequent performance on EF tasks; viewing entertainment-type animation reduced children's IC and CF scores, while no effects were found for educational-type animation on each EF Furthermore these effects were the same across ages.

4.1. Short-Term Effects of Animation Type on EF in Children

In the current study, animation type affected children’s IC tasks: entertainment animation weakened children’s IC scores more than educational animation or drawing. The main features of entertainment programs are lively storylines with robust narrative features.

These features attract children’s attention and stimulate their interest [31,40]. Li’s study assessed children’s eye movements while watching different types of programs. The results showed that entertainment programs elicited shorter gaze duration and more gaze points than educational programs [20]. Thus, fun-rich entertainment programs elicit great interest from children.

Moreover, frequent transitions in program plots or scenes increase the demand for children’s encoding and storage resources [41]. According to the strength model of self-control, all self-control requires the same resources, and the consumption of resources in one domain affects the resources available in another [42]. In addition, the cognitive resources consumed by entertainment animation reduce the resources available to inhibit certain behaviors and thus result in a poorer response in corresponding tasks.

Furthermore, the most significant difference between entertainment and educational programming is that entertainment programs lack the cognitive and social information features that enhance delayed tolerance in young children [18] or are harmless to children’s cognitive development [23]. Thus, entertainment programs’ absence of informational features may place children in a passive mode of information processing when watching the program [43] and perform worse on IC tasks. 

Therefore, considering that IC is the basis for the development of complex cognitive functions in children, a concerted effort by parents and society to reduce the viewing of entertaining animation by children before age seven is warranted to promote their healthy cognitive development.

Entertainment cartoons may weaken CF due to limited cognitive resources and the characteristics of CF. First, according to the strength model of self-control [42], children must constantly suppress existing real-world rules and knowledge when watching entertainment cartoons and conform to illusory plots while consuming their modest cognitive resources. Second, according to Lang’s limited capacity model [41], animation’s distinctive and prominent features attract children’s attention. This result leads to a constant response to the frequent and novel stimuli of the program, raising the level of individual arousal and increasing children’s need for information encoding. 

However, children’s limited cognitive resources cannot meet these new demands, especially as more complex CF may require IC and WM together [44], thus requiring more resources to process the information. Therefore, the appropriation of limited cognitive resources cannot satisfy tasks that subsequently require the involvement of more resources. This shift causes individuals to exhibit diminished CF. Hence, practical steps are needed to promote children’s CF and reduce cognitive attrition. Therefore, reducing the cartoon-watching time and frequency for children aged four to seven years is essential. In addition, parents and educators should encourage them to spend more time on cognitively beneficial activities such as drawing or sports.

Finally, this study found no significant differences in children’s WM levels between the drawing and the entertainment and educational animation groups. This finding may be related to the measurement tool used in the present study. The present study used a backward digit span task. Although trends in this task were also found across ages in this research, considering this task is a complex memory span task [45], its critical developmental period would be in elementary school [46]. Thus, the participants in the present study were probably only at the low level of the task (the mean value of the subjects in the present study on this task was only 2.69). The low differentiation on the task prevents the effect of animation from being well-differentiated. Future validation studies could be conducted using simple WM tasks or visual WM tasks that are more applicable to the early childhood stage.

4.2. Age Differences in the Effects of Animation on Children’s EF

Although the present study found significant age differences in EF scores for each task, that is, there was a tendency for scores for each component of EF to improve with increasing age. However, there was no significant age difference in the effect of animation type on children’s EF. This finding may be attributed to the developmental stage of EF. Although there are differences in the development of EF components in children aged four to seven, these children are all in the initial developmental stage of EF [47], so animation’s effects on EF are similar for all these ages. Alternatively, the results may indicate that the age differences in animation effects on EF in children are not observable between four and seven years. Since infancy is a period of rapid brain development and plasticity, television may impair EF more severely during that time than during other developmental periods [12].

Furthermore, there is no meaningful relationship between television viewing and attention problems at five years old [15]. However, a significant relationship exists between television viewing at age one and later attention problems [10]. Combined with the American Academy of Pediatrics’ suggested ban on video media for children under the age of two [48], it is more likely that the sensitive period for media effects on children’s EF is before rather than after four years of age. Future studies should investigate these inferences.

4.3. Limitations

Although this study yielded some meaningful results, there are limitations. First, drawing was used as a control group when grouping animation types. Although drawing is a quiet activity often performed by young children and is often used by control groups, this activity may promote children’s EF to some extent rather than not affect EF. 

Therefore, an activity with no effect on EF is needed to reveal the actual effect of animation type on EF objectively. Second, although a causal conclusion can be drawn from the short-term effect of animation on children’s EF, this may only be temporary, and there may not be a long-term effect on children’s EF. Therefore, long-term cumulative effects should be investigated in future research. Third, while this study controlled for features such as fantasy and pacing in selecting animation, there is a complex combination of these animation features and types (educational vs. entertainment) in everyday animation. Future research could build on this foundation and explore the effects of different combinations of animation messages on children to understand better the effects of animation on children’s EF. 

Finally, this study only applied three widely used tasks to measure the three components of EF, which only reflected a specific characteristic of each component of EF and could not represent the connotation of each component more comprehensively. Future studies can consider different connotations of EF tasks concurrently and select multiple tasks for comprehensive consideration.

5. Conclusions

Viewing cartoons impairs subsequent EF performance in children aged four to seven years, as evidenced by the fact that viewing entertainment animation impairs children’s IC and CF, whereas viewing educational animations did not affect children’s performance on each task of EF. Entertainment animation viewing behavior still needs to be limited and reduced for children younger than seven years.

Author Contributions: Conceptualization, L.F.; Methodology, M.L. and J.X.; Writing—original draft preparation, L.F.; Writing—review and editing, L.F. and M.L.; Visualization, X.Q.; Funding acquisition, L.F. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding: This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China’s pedagogy project, “The impact of animation violence on primary and secondary school students and its intervention research” (No. BHA170134).

Institutional Review Board Statement: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of Henan University (protocol code HUIRB2020-301).

Informed Consent Statement: Informed consent was obtained from all participants involved in the study

Data Availability Statement: The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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