Toddlers Viewing Fantastical Cartoons: Evidence of an Immediate Reduction in Endogenous Control Without an Increase in Stimulus-Driven Exogenous Control.

ABSTRACT: Empirical studies have shown immediate detrimental effects of TV viewing on children's executive functions (EFs). Existing theories of TV viewing have proposed that such depletion could occur due to fantastical cartoons triggering an attention bias towards salient features of the stimuli (e.g., stimulus-driven exogenous attention). However, a co-occurrence of salient visual features known to drive attention exogenously in fantastical cartoons means it is unclear which aspect of the content is problematic. In the present study, we matched clips on visual saliency to isolate and test the short-term impact of fantastical content. Specifically, we tested (1) performance on an inhibitory control (IC) task (a gaze-contingent anti-saccade task) as a measure of EF depletion, whilst 36 toddlers (18

SUBMITTER: Essex C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11911715 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature