The Effect Of Television On Preschoolers’Executive Function:the Perspective Of Reality Judgment

The present study investigated the long-term and short-term effect of television on preschooler’s executive functions (EF). In study1, the results indicated that television was the most popular media in children’s daily life. The purpose of this study was to investigate the long-term effect of television on children’s EF. In study2, experiment1and2investigated the short-term effect of different type of television on preschooler’s EFs using the same procedure and different technique. Preschoolers’EF was assessed through three tasks to tap three key factors including inhibitory control, working memory and set updating. Experiment1emphasized the model of fixation during viewing educational vs. entertaining television and the immediate impact of these two types of content on children’s EFs using eye tracker. Experiment2further confirmed the results of Experiment1and investigated children’s levels of activity in prefrontal cortex using fNIRS. Both Experiment1and2showed that entertaining cartoon has a significant short-term negative effect on children’s EF. Moreover, the entertaining cartoon group had more fixation numbers, shorter mean fixation duration, and showed lower concentration of the oxyhemoglobin. In all, it is argued that both of time and type television have negative effect on children’s EF. In experiment3,289children’s data including the amount of television viewing, the name of television on a typical day, and children’s EF were collected through parent’s report, six and twelve months later they were tested again. The results indicated that the amount of television viewing per week would significantly negative predicted children’s later EF. Study3investigated children’s understanding of events and characters in television in order to further explain the effect of television on children’s EF. Popular children’s cartoons contain both fantastical and real events. How do children judge the fantastical and real events depicted in these cartoons? Do their judgments differ from adults?54children and18adults were shown ten real and ten fantastical short video segments chosen from a popular cartoon. After viewing these videos, they were asked two questions about the reality status of the event, and their justifications for their responses. The results indicated that4-year-olds were different from adults in their judgments of reality, and justifications. These results suggested that4-year-olds children did not have a clear understanding of the reality status of events in cartoons. The findings further provided evidence that4-year-olds were much more skeptical of real events. However, children were more likely to judge character in the entertainment cartoon as real, as shown in experiment5.