ArticleHeliyon2023
Viewing and playing fantastical events does not affect children's cognitive flexibility and prefrontal activation.
Article in Heliyon, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Early Childhood Screen Use Contexts and Cognitive and Psychosocial Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.JAMA pediatrics · 2024Pooled it
- The immediate impacts of TV programs on preschoolers' executive functions and attention: a systematic review.BMC psychology · 2024Pooled it
- An eye tracking examination of fantasy television's immediate influence on children's executive functions.Scientific reports · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Media exposure, such as viewing fantastical content, can have negative, immediate, and long-term effects on children's executive function. A recent study showed that watching fantastical content on a tablet can impair children's inhibitory control and prefrontal activation during the performance of a task. However, the same effect was not observed when children played fantastical games on a tablet. We aimed to replicate and extend this research by examining whether the same effects are observed during a cognitive flexibility task. In this study, preschool children (N = 32, 15 girls, Mean age in months (SD) = 60.6 (10)) viewed or played fantastical content on a tablet and performed a Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task before or after the media exposure. We assessed children's behavioral performance and prefrontal activation, as measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and found no behavioral or neural changes after exposure. Our analyses using the Bayes factor supported the null hypothesis that children's cognitive flexibility is unaffected by watching or playing fantastical content.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.