Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Experimental Child

Psychology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp

The effects of screen media content on young

children’s executive functioning
Brittany Huber ⇑, Megan Yeates, Denny Meyer, Lorraine Fleckhammer,
Jordy Kaufman
Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Children’s exposure to screen-based media has raised concerns for
Received 13 October 2017 many reasons. One reason is that viewing particular television con-
Revised 8 January 2018 tent has been shown to negatively affect children’s executive func-
tioning. Yet, it is unclear whether interacting with a touchscreen
device affects executive functioning in the same way as the television
Keywords:
research suggests. In the current study, 96 2- and 3-year-old children
Executive function
Young children
completed executive functioning measures of working memory and
Screen media response inhibition and task switching before and after a brief screen
Touchscreens intervention consisting of watching an educational television show,
Educational apps playing an educational app, or watching a cartoon. Children’s ability
Educational television to delay gratification was also assessed. Results indicate that the type
of screen intervention had a significant effect on executive function-
ing performance. Children were more likely to delay gratification
after playing an educational app than after viewing a cartoon. In
particular instances, children’s working memory improved after play-
ing the educational app. These findings emphasize that, for young
children’s executive functioning, interactivity and content may be
more important factors to consider than simply ‘‘screen time.”
Ó 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction

The purpose of the current study was to examine how different types of screen media experiences
immediately affect young children’s executive functioning (EF). This work was intended to fill a

⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: bhuber@swin.edu.au (B. Huber).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.01.006
0022-0965/Ó 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
 B. Huber et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85 73

number of important empirical gaps in the literature. Specifically, there is little work examining the
effect of media exposure on the EF of children younger than 4 years old. Moreover, prior work in this
area has focused on observational noninteractive video. Here, we further examined how touchscreen
app use affects young children’s EF.
Executive functions refer to higher order cognitive processes responsible for mediating goal-
directed behavior, including self-regulation, working memory, inhibition, and attention (Beck,
Schaefer, Pang, & Carlson, 2011; Garon, Bryson, & Smith, 2008; Hughes & Ensor, 2005). Researchers
have distinguished between executive functions as being either ‘‘hot” or ‘‘cool.” Hot executive func-
tions are activated in emotive or heightened social situations, and are typically measured by tasks
with an extrinsic reward such as delay of gratification (Beck et al., 2011). Conversely, cool executive
functions are emotionally neutral cognitive skills typically assessed by more abstract tasks (Brock,
Rimm-Kaufman, Nathanson, & Grimm, 2009). These abilities develop rapidly during early childhood
and are related to children’s social and academic school readiness (Blair, Zelazo, & Greenberg,
2005). Collectively, both hot and cool executive functions are crucial to daily functioning and are
important for learning and academic success (Diamond, 2013).
Given the significance of EF in development and learning, it is important to identify factors that
may affect executive function performance in children. One such factor that has been repeatedly iden-
tified is exposure to observational media (e.g., television). Particular features of television programs
can have immediate effects on 4-year-old children’s hot (e.g., delay of gratification) and cool (e.g., digit
span, Tower of Hanoi, Heads–Knees–Toes–Shoulders) EF performance (Lillard, Drell, Richey,
Boguszewski, & Smith, 2015; Lillard & Peterson, 2011; Lillard, Li, & Boguszewski, 2015) . In addition,
other research has found that both television exposure time and content are related to children’s con-
current EF abilities as well as their EF performance later in life (Barr, Lauricella, Zack, & Calvert, 2010;
Nathanson, Aladé, Sharp, Rasmussen, & Christy, 2014). Notably, as detailed below, it is not only the
duration of exposure but also the specific media experience that can affect children’s EF.
The nature of television content and the amount of screen time exposure have been shown to affect
children’s EF. For example, in a longitudinal study exploring the effects of television exposure during
infancy and the preschool years, Barr et al. (2010) found that the content and duration of television
exposure at each time point were related to EF at 4 years of age. Children exposed to high levels of
adult-directed television at both 12 months and 4 years had poorer EF scores at 4 years of age. In addi-
tion, high levels of household television use at age 4 were associated with poorer EF. Interestingly,
exposure to child-directed programming at either time point was not associated with EF scores
(Barr et al., 2010). When children view content that is designed for them (e.g., Public Broadcasting Sta-
tion [PBS] and Nickelodeon preschool programs), it is less detrimental to their EF than adult-directed
content. This study suggests that in addition to overall television exposure, television content also
plays an influential role in young children’s EF development.
More recently, children’s television viewing was further teased apart. Parental records of house-
hold television use reported television duration, channels, and programs watched (Nathanson et al.,
2014). Here, consistent with the aforementioned study, children who viewed more television had
weaker EF scores compared with children who watched fewer hours. Both the television channel
viewed and the type of content were important predictors of EF performance. Specifically, PBS viewing
was positively related to children’s EF skills, whereas watching educational cartoons (e.g., Dora the
Explorer) was associated with poorer EF performance. Greater television viewing is typically related
to poorer EF skills, whereas high-quality children’s programming (e.g., PBS) is related to better EF.
In addition to correlational studies, experimental research has shown that particular television
content can have immediate effects on children’s EF. Lillard and Peterson (2011) assessed preschool-
ers’ EF abilities directly after viewing 9 min of a fast-paced cartoon (SpongeBob SquarePants) or an edu-
cational television program (Caillou). They concluded that the fast-paced fantastical cartoon
subsequently impaired preschoolers’ hot (e.g., delay of gratification) and cool (e.g., backward digit
span) EF performance. Interestingly, baseline EF performance was not measured, meaning that an
alternative explanation of the results remains to be explored. Specifically, it is possible that the car-
toon did not have negative effects on EF performance but that the educational program had positive
effects on EF performance.
74 B. Huber et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85

Recently, these effects were explored in greater detail over a series of experiments (Lillard, Drell
et al., 2015). First, the aforementioned study by Lillard and Peterson (2011) was repeated with 4- and
6-year olds with mixed results. Children who watched a fast-paced fantastical cartoon performed
significantly worse on cool EF tasks compared with children who were engaged in free play for
the same amount of time. No significant difference was found for cool EF between children who
watched a slow-paced realistic cartoon1 compared with children who viewed a fast-paced fantastical
cartoon. The negative effects of watching a fast-paced fantastical cartoon on delay of gratification were
not replicated here. Thus, in a second study, the hot EF measure was removed and the immediate
effects of two fast-paced fantastical programs—one educational and one entertainment—were com-
pared on 4-year-olds’ cool EF. After 22 min of viewing, cool EF performance was similar for children
who viewed either entertaining or educational fast-paced fantastical shows, and both groups performed
worse than children who were read a book. Thus, even a program intended to be educational can
adversely affect EF when it is fast and fantastical. These results suggest that screen media content
can have immediate effects on EF; and that the type of content may affect particular EF domains
differently (i.e. hot vs. cool EF).
Another experiment was conducted to disentangle the influence of television pace and content on
4-year-olds’ EF (Lillard, Drell et al., 2015). Children watched one of four television programs: (a) a fast-
paced realistic show, (b) a fast-paced fantastical show, (c) a slow-paced realistic show, or (d) a slow-
paced fantastical show. To control for baseline EF ability, an EF battery was administered pre-
intervention that differed from the test battery with the exception of an auditory working memory
task that was repeated. Results indicated that content, but not pace, affected post-screen intervention
aggregate cool EF scores. Children who viewed realistic content had positive EF scores, whereas chil-
dren who viewed fantastical content had negative scores. Changes in auditory working memory per-
formance were examined separately and were consistent with the post-test EF results; children who
watched realistic content had improved working memory scores, whereas working memory declined
for those who watched fantastical content. The authors concluded that, regardless of pacing, fantasti-
cal shows have adverse effects on children’s EF (Lillard, Drell et al., 2015). These results again empha-
size the importance of identifying media content when examining screen media’s influence on
children’s EF.
These studies indicated that when considering noninteractive video, content is an important piece
in the puzzle of determining best practices for children’s media use. Both the amount of time and the
type of content children consume are important determinants of screen media’s impact on EF. For this
reason, guidelines for young children’s media use integrate both content and time (e.g., American
Academy of Pediatrics [AAP] Council on Communications and Media, 2016). Such recommendations
for young children (particularly those under 4 years of age) are mainly based on decades of observa-
tional media research despite the fact that children today are consumers of a wide array of screen
media including mobile touchscreens (Rideout, 2017). Although much of the time that young children
spend with touchscreen devices is used for watching videos (Cristia & Seidl, 2015), the proportion of
screen time during which young children use interactive media, such as mobile touchscreen applica-
tions, has increased during recent years (Common Sense Media, 2013; Rideout, 2017).
Indeed, there is little research examining screen media effects on EF in younger children. Specif-
ically, previous research in this area has investigated how observational media affects EF in chil-
dren 4 years and older, whereas studies of interactive touchscreen media use and younger
children have tended to focus on transfer of learning (e.g., Kirkorian & Pempek, 2013; Moser
et al., 2015; Tarasuik, Demaria, & Kaufman, 2017). Because young children are increasingly engag-
ing with interactive touchscreens, it is important to investigate if and how touchscreen use affects
their EF compared with evidence from television. Is the medium, in fact, the message? Or does the
specific media experience (i.e., interactivity and content) matter more than the device itself? Know-
ing this is important because it can determine the extent to which media use guidelines for young
children should focus on media platforms and/or specific aspects of the media experience—content
and interactivity.

1
A slow-paced realistic cartoon was referred to as an educational cartoon in the original study (Lillard & Peterson, 2011).
 B. Huber et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85 75

Here, we examined hot and cool EF in 2- and 3-year-old children before and after exposure to one
of three different touchscreen-based interventions: (a) a noneducational cartoon, (b) an educational
video, or (c) an educational app. We hypothesized that, based on past research with older children
(e.g., Lillard & Peterson, 2011), children’s hot and cool EF performance would be affected by the media
experience. Specifically, we expected a fast-paced noneducational cartoon to have more adverse
effects on both hot and cool domains of EF than an educational touchscreen app. Such a result would
be analogous to Lillard and Peterson’s (2011) finding that noneducational cartoon viewing negatively
affected EF relative to a drawing activity.
Because Lillard and Peterson (2011) found the effects of educational television programming
appeared to sit somewhere between those of drawing and those of cartoon viewing, we reasoned that
our observational educational video would have effects somewhere between those of the educational
app and those of the cartoon. Put another way, we hypothesized that the interactive nature of the edu-
cational app may have benefits relative to the noninteractive educational video—on both hot and cool
EF performance. However, we hypothesized that the educational video would also lead to better EF
performance because it is slower paced and includes fewer fantastical elements than the noneduca-
tional cartoon.
In addition, we examined how the order of tasks might affect EF performance. We reasoned that
this analysis would help us to understand the time course of any effects of screen-based activity on
EF performance. Overall, we sought to clarify how various media activities influence EF—so that par-
ents, educators, and policymakers can make better informed decisions for screen use and activity
selection for children. Note that in the current study we were not seeking to disentangle how pace
within an interactive app affects EF; this is a question for subsequent research provided that the edu-
cational app and noninteractive cartoon have significantly different effects on children’s EF.

Method

Participants

A total of 96 children aged 24–48 months (M = 36.3 months, SD = 7.0; 54 boys) were randomly
assigned to one of three conditions: Cartoon (n = 37), EduApp (n = 37), or EduTV (n = 22). Of this sam-
ple, 9 children were excluded from analysis due to an unwillingness to complete all EF tasks (i.e., they
did not complete all baseline and post-screen measures: 2 EduApp, 1 Cartoon, and 2 EduTV) or to
attend to the screen-based intervention (4 Cartoon). Parents were asked whether their children had
ever used a touchscreen to perform a number of activities, including watching videos and playing
games. Previous touchscreen use was quantified by whether parents indicated that their children
had ever done any of these activities. Previous touchscreen use was common (93%) among the partic-
ipants. The majority of children came from middle- to upper middle-class homes. The median range of
annual household income reported was $100,000–$150,000 (AUD). The majority of children’s parents
indicated that they had completed at least 1 year of tertiary education (94%).
Families were recruited from surrounding suburbs in Swinburne University of Technology’s greater
metropolitan area in Australia via a database of past participants, word of mouth, and social media
advertisements. Parents provided informed consent for their children’s participation. The study was
approved by the university’s human research ethics committee.

Materials

Executive function measures

Spin the pots (a visuospatial working memory task). The Spin the Pots task (Beck et al., 2011; Hughes &
Ensor, 2005) is a cool EF task. Here, children helped the experimenter to hide stickers in six of eight
small, visually distinct boxes on a Lazy Susan (i.e., rotating tray), with two boxes remaining empty.
The two remaining empty boxes were consistent across participants. The experimenter covered the
boxes with a scarf and rotated the Lazy Susan 360°. After lifting the scarf, the experimenter asked chil-
dren which box they would like to open. The goal of the task was to find all six stickers, one at a time,
76 B. Huber et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85

in as few trials as possible (while maintaining which boxes are empty in working memory). Children
were given a maximum of 16 trials to find all of the stickers. Scores were calculated as the total num-
ber of possible trials (16) minus the number of errors.

Reverse categorization (a measure of task switching and response inhibition [cool EF]). In the Reverse Cat-
egorization task (Beck et al., 2011; Carlson, Mandell, & Williams, 2004), children first sort 6 objects
congruently (big objects go in a big bucket and little objects go in a little bucket). After sorting con-
gruently, the rules are reversed and children are instructed to sort 12 objects incongruently. The 2-
year-olds completed the task using big and little blocks. The 3-year-olds sorted ‘‘mummy” and ‘‘baby”
Australian animals into buckets labeled with an image of a human mother and baby. Prior to the con-
gruent trials, the experimenter ascertained that children could differentiate between big and little
stimuli and then demonstrated congruent sorting of 6 items. Scores were calculated as the total num-
ber of correctly sorted objects in the incongruent trials (out of 12).

Gift delay. In the Gift Delay task (Kochanska et al., 2000), a gift bag was presented to children seated at
a table, but the experimenter had ‘‘forgotten” the bow. Children were asked to wait in their chair for
the bow and to not touch the bag until the experimenter returned (3 min later). Children’s perfor-
mance was coded dichotomously as a function of whether the bag was touched (i.e., those who did
not touch the bag were coded as having successfully delayed gratification). In total, 13 participants
(3 EduApp, 4 EduTV, 6 Cartoon) were removed from the Gift Delay analysis due to experimenter error.

Screen intervention materials

Three different screen conditions were each administered on an iPad 2. In the EduApp condition,
the app Shiny Party by Shiny Things was chosen for the opportunities to learn shapes and complete
puzzles within the narrative of preparing for a character’s birthday. From the iTunes App store,
‘‘Shiny Party is a learning tool for 2–5 year olds, providing a fun and engaging way for children to
explore vital early mathematics concepts.” The content is educational (it incorporates a learning goal
[Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015]) and adds a physically interactive dimension accessible to the age of
participants.
In the Cartoon condition, children watched part of an episode of Penguins of Madagascar, which fol-
lows the antics of several anthropomorphized penguins. This program was selected as a fantastical
cartoon in lieu of SpongeBob SquarePants because pre-experiment pilot sessions indicated that children
under 4 years old showed disinterest in this program. We further reasoned that parents may have
heard of potential negative effects of viewing SpongeBob SquarePants and opted for a different chil-
dren’s program designed purely to entertain (see https://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/
the-penguins-of-madagascar).
In the EduTV condition, children viewed an excerpt of Sesame Street designed to teach self-
regulation (both hot and cool EF) to 3- to 5-year-olds. Cookie Monster needs to ‘‘stop and think”
and problem solve (e.g., identify shapes) to achieve a clear goal. The content has a learning goal and
is inclusive of the high-quality programming standards that media use guidelines advise (e.g., AAP
Council on Communications and Media, 2016).
To consider possible effects of pace and fantastical content, two coders assessed the videos used in
the EduTV and Cartoon conditions for pace as measured by complete scene changes per minute (e.g.,
Lillard & Peterson, 2011) and fantastical events per minute defined as events that violate physics (e.g.,
Lillard, Li, et al., 2015). The Penguins of Madagascar cartoon shown to children had 3.18 complete scene
changes per minute, which exceeded the Sesame Street EduTV rate of 2.30 changes per minute. With
respect to fantastical events, the cartoon displayed 2.99 events per minute, which exceeded the EduTV
rate of 1.40 fantastical events per minute. Assessing scene changes and fantastical content in the edu-
cational app (EduApp condition) was not possible in the same way because the content was influenced
by children’s interactions with it. However, based on the constraints of the app narrative, no partici-
pant saw, on average, more than 1 fantastical event per minute or more than 2.5 scene changes per
minute. Therefore, we do not consider EduApp experience to be reasonably classifiable as ‘‘fantastical.”
 B. Huber et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85 77

Procedure

Baseline EF was assessed using Spin the Pots and Reverse Categorization, measures of cool EF. The
order of these tasks was counterbalanced across participants. Each task took approximately 5 min to
complete. Virtually all of this time was time on task because the experimenter encouraged children to
remain focused on each of the activities. Following baseline testing, children had 9 min of screen time
on an iPad 2 with one of the three conditions: EduApp, EduTV, or Cartoon. EF measures were admin-
istered again post-screen activity; children participated in the Spin the Pots and Reverse Categoriza-
tion tasks in the same order as baseline testing. The Spin the Pots boxes were swapped for 8 new boxes
for novelty and to minimize proactive interference. After cool EF tasks were complete, the Gift Delay
task was performed. The experiment took approximately 35 min to complete.

Coding

Coding of children’s behavior was conducted from video by a trained coder. To assess reliability, a
random subset of cases was coded by an additional observer blind to the experimental condition.
Coder reliability was assessed with Krippendorff’s alpha (Hayes & Krippendorff, 2007), demonstrating
robust coder agreement with respect to difference scores (i.e., between baseline and test) on the inter-
val data for the Spin the Pots (n = 24, alpha = .93) and Reverse Categorization (n = 21, alpha = .97)
tasks. It also showed robust agreement on the ordinal scores obtained from each coder in the Gift
Delay task (n = 20, alpha = .95). The scoring system for each task was described in the Materials sec-
tion above.

Statistical analysis

Gift Delay performance was analyzed using binary logistic regression to examine the effects of the
different screen activity exposures and age on the likelihood of not touching the gift. Change scores for
cool EF measures were calculated for each child by subtracting baseline scores from post-screen activ-
ity scores. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to determine whether children’s
baseline cool EF performance was similar across all three conditions for both Spin the Pots and Reverse
Categorization. General linear model (GLM) analyses were performed to test the effect of the different
screen activity exposures, task order, their interaction, and age and baseline performance on the EF
change scores. Baseline performance was included in the analysis to control for potential ceiling
effects in a subset of participants in both groups (i.e., high performers at baseline are unlikely to show
significant improvement at test).

Results

Preliminary analyses revealed no significant main effect of, or any interactions with, sex or previ-
ous exposure to touchscreens on any of the dependent measures; therefore, these factors were not
considered in subsequent analyses.

Hot EF results

The percentages of children in the three conditions who passed the Gift Delay task were 84% for
EduApp, 63% for EduTV, and 61% for Cartoon. A binary logistic regression was performed to compare
the effect of condition on children’s Gift Delay task performance with age as a covariate. The Hosmer–
Lemeshow test indicates that the model described the data well, v2(8) = 6.26, p = .618. When screen
activity was controlled, the odds for ‘‘no touch” were on average 19% higher, 95% confidence interval
(CI) [7%, 32%], for each additional month of age, v2(1) = 10.49, p = .001. The odds for no touch were on
average 8 times higher for the EduApp condition than for the Cartoon condition when age was con-
trolled, 95% CI [1.69, 40.92], v2(1) = 6.80, p = .009. There was no significant difference between Cartoon
78 B. Huber et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85

and EduTV Gift Delay performance, v2(1) = 1.48, p = .224. Gift Delay performance between children
who played the EduApp and viewed EduTV also did not differ significantly, v2(1) = 1.94, p = .164.

Cool EF results

A one-way ANOVA of baseline EF performance revealed that children in the EduApp, EduTV, and
Cartoon groups did not differ significantly in either the Spin the Pots or Reverse Categorization task
prior to screen exposure. After controlling for age, correlational analysis revealed no significant rela-
tionship between Spin the Pots performance and Reverse Categorization, r(73) = .09, p = .428. Thus,
executive function measures were analyzed individually. Table 1 summarizes the raw scores of EF per-
formance for the Reverse Categorization and Spin the Pots tasks at baseline and post-screen activity
exposure.
To compare the effects of different screen activity conditions (EduApp, EduTV, and Cartoon) on
children’s EF, two separate GLMs were performed: one for Spin the Pots and one for Reverse
Categorization (Table 2). First, we examined Reverse Categorization change scores as the dependent
variable, with condition and task order as factors and age (months) and Reverse Categorization base-
line as covariates. As shown in Table 2, there was no significant effect of screen activity condition on
Reverse Categorization change scores, and changes in Reverse Categorization task performance were
not significantly related to age. Task order was also not significant, and there was no significant
interaction between task order and condition. There was a significant relationship between Reverse
Categorization baseline performance and Reverse Categorization change scores, F(1, 69) = 15.67,
p < .001, g2p = .19.
In the second GLM, we analyzed Spin the Pots change scores as the dependent variable, with con-
dition and task order as factors and age (months) and Spin the Pots baseline performance as covariates
(see Table 2 for statistics). There was a significant main effect for condition driven by children improv-
ing the most after the EduApp intervention. We did not find a significant effect of task order on change
scores, but the interaction between task order and condition was significant. With respect to the con-
tinuous covariates, our analyses revealed a significant effect of Spin the Pots baseline performance on
change scores but no significant effect of age.
A post hoc analysis was conducted to better understand the interaction between task order and
screen activity condition on changes in Spin the Pots performance. An analysis of covariance
(ANCOVA) was performed with Spin the Pots change scores as the dependent variable, analyzed by
task order with condition as the independent variable and Spin the Pots baseline performance and
age (months) as covariates. Condition was found to be a significant factor for children assigned to
‘‘Spin the Pots 2nd” order (i.e., when the Spin the Pots task followed the Reverse Categorization task),
F(2, 33) = 5.27, p = .01, g2p = .24 (Fig. 1). Follow-up comparisons of estimated marginal means showed
that Spin the Pots change scores for children in the EduApp condition were significantly higher (i.e.,
more improved) than for those in both the Cartoon (p = .013) and EduTV (p = .023) conditions. Change
scores for the two observational video conditions (EduTV and Cartoon) did not significantly differ from
one another. For children in the ‘‘Spin the Pots 1st” order, the effect of condition did not reach statis-
tical significance, F(2, 41) = 2.28, p = .115, g2p = .10.
To determine which screen activity condition significantly affected Spin the Pots performance, one-
sample t tests were performed using 95% CIs for the mean change scores obtained from 1000 bootstrap
samples due to small sample sizes. As shown in Table 3, it was only in the case of the EduApp screen
activity that there was a significant improvement in Spin the Pots performance (95% CI positive), and
this occurred only when Spin the Pots followed the Reverse Categorization task.

Discussion

The key finding of this study was that, relative to watching a cartoon, playing with an educational
app had beneficial effects on children’s subsequent hot and cool EF performance. This finding was con-
sistent in two of the three measures of EF assessed. Most notably, across all three EF tasks, the edu-
cational app was never found to adversely affect children’s EF. Specifically, the screen intervention
 B. Huber et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85 79

Table 1
Performance on both measures of cool EF at baseline and post-screen activity.

EF measure EduApp (n = 31) EduTV (n = 17) Cartoon (n = 29)

M SD Min Max M SD Min Max M SD Min Max
Spin the pots
Baseline 12.74 3.12 4 16 12.75 2.89 7 16 13.79 2.44 5 16
Post-screen 13.71 2.44 4 16 11.76 3.62 5 16 13.55 2.38 7 16
Reverse categorization
Baseline 9.54 4.32 0 12 8.06 4.74 0 12 10.55 2.65 3 12
Post-screen 9.22 4.81 0 12 8.35 4.54 0 12 9.86 3.04 0 12

Note. Different ns for each condition and measure were due to participants not having completed both baseline and post-screen
EF measures.

Table 2
GLM results for changes in cool EF performance.

Cool EF measure F df g2p p

Reverse categorization
Age 0.22 1 .00 .639
Baseline 15.67 1 .19 <.001***
Task order 0.15 1 .00 .701
Condition 0.12 2 .00 .890
Condition * task order 0.33 2 .01 .718
Spin the pots
Age 3.57 1 .05 .063
Baseline 34.96 1 .32 <.001***
Task order <.01 1 .00 .992
Condition 4.82 2 .11 .011*
Condition * task order 4.38 2 .10 .016*
*
p < .05.
***
p < .001.

type had a significant effect on subsequent delay of gratification and working memory performance.
The inclusion of the educational TV (EduTV) condition allowed us to further tease apart which aspects
of the screen-based interventions underlie the EF performance differences across the tasks. The results
of each of these tasks and the overall implications of our findings are discussed below.

Hot EF performance

With respect to hot EF, our results show that children were significantly more likely to delay grat-
ification after playing the educational app (i.e., in the EduApp condition) than after viewing the car-
toon. Delay performance for children in the EduTV condition fell between those of the other two
conditions but did not significantly differ from either intervention. Thus, the clearest message from
the pattern of results is that educational apps should be considered differently from cartoon viewing
with respect to their effects on hot EF.
Indeed, if we consider the educational app to be more akin to performing a calm physical activity,
then our delay of gratification results align well with those of Lillard and Peterson (2011), who found
that children waited significantly longer after a physically engaging activity (e.g., drawing) than they
did after watching a fast-paced cartoon.
Our failure to reveal any differences in hot EF performance between the two observational media
conditions (i.e., EduTV vs. Cartoon) provides helpful evidence to disambiguate the conflicting findings
of earlier work. Specifically, Lillard and Peterson (2011) originally found that children delayed for sig-
nificantly less time after watching a fast-paced cartoon compared with viewing an educational car-
toon or drawing. More recently, however, Lillard, Drell et al. (2015) found no differences in delay
80 B. Huber et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85

2.5

2
Mean change in Spin the Pots score

1.5

0.5

0 EduApp

-0.5 EduTV
Cartoon
-1

-1.5

-2

-2.5

-3
Spin the Pots 1st Spin the Pots 2nd
Cool EF task order

Fig. 1. Effects of screen intervention on Spin the Pots task performance. Change in performance from baseline to post-screen
activity in the Spin the Pots task as a function of condition (Cartoon vs. EduApp) and task order (Spin the Pots 1st vs. Spin the
Pots 2nd) is shown. Change scores represent marginal means controlling for Spin the Pots baseline scores. Error bars represent
95% confidence intervals.

Table 3
Bias-corrected bootstrap estimates for the changes in Spin the Pots performance after the screen activity.

Cool EF task order EduApp EduTV Cartoon

n M 95% CI n M 95% CI n M 95% CI
Spin the pots 1st 21 0.62 [ 0.22, 1.48] 9 0.56 [ 2.89, 1.56] 16 0.50 [ 0.41, 1.50]
Spin the pots 2nd 13 1.77 [0.29, 3.50] 11 0.18 [ 1.00, 0.60] 14 0.86 [ 2.31, 0.42]

performance between children who watched a slow-paced realistic program and those who watched a
fast-paced fantastical cartoon. Our results are consistent with the latter of these studies despite the
younger sample.
One of the reasons why recent research on children’s hot EF after media interventions has attracted
attention is that the ability to delay gratification has been linked to children’s academic and lifelong
success (Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989; Mischel et al., 2011). One of the possibilities raised by
Lillard, Drell et al. (2015) and others (e.g., Christakis, 2011) is that the immediate effects of media
exposure on EF could foreshadow longer term cumulative effects on EF with repeated media exposure.
To the extent that one accepts this connection, our results suggest that it is valuable to discuss mul-
tiple aspects of the screen media experience (e.g., content and interactivity) when formulating screen
media guidelines. The research findings of the current study suggest that hot EF performance may be
hindered by observational noneducational video, whereas interactive educational apps do not pose
such detriment.

Cool EF performance

Our results show that under certain circumstances (see discussion of task order effects below),
screen media content also affected children’s cool EF, specifically working memory ability. In the Spin
 B. Huber et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85 81

the Pots task, children’s working memory improved from baseline to test after playing the learning
game (EduApp). In comparison, there was no significant difference from baseline to test in either
the EduTV or Cartoon condition. Comparing change scores from baseline to test, the results revealed
greater improvement after playing the learning game for children in the EduApp condition than in
either of the other two conditions.
Because the EduTV and Cartoon interventions affected working memory similarly, it is reasonable
to suggest that brief exposure to educational content alone is insufficient to immediately benefit
working memory with the absence of interactivity. That is, the positive EduApp effects may have
stemmed from the app’s interactive component as well as its educational content. Further evidence
for this possibility comes from Lillard and Peterson (2011), who reported negative effects of brief car-
toon viewing on cool EF, which differed significantly from the effects of drawing (an interactive activ-
ity) but not of educational television. According to this view, the EduApp condition used here was
similar to the physical drawing condition used by Lillard and Peterson.
Additional support for the interaction hypothesis comes from recent work in which researchers
explored how interactivity may influence the relationship between fantastical or real events and chil-
dren’s cool EF, specifically inhibitory control (Li, Subrahmanyam, Bai, Xie, & Liu, 2018). A series of
experiments with 4- to 6-year-olds revealed that watching fantastical content impaired inhibitory
control, whereas interacting with fantastical content did not. Children who played the game reported
events as less fantastical than those in the video condition. In addition, children’s inhibitory control
improved after viewing or interacting with real events (i.e., events that can happen in real life). A pos-
sible explanation for the detrimental effects of viewing fantastical content is that it increases cognitive
load and exhausts attentional resources, making subsequent EF tasks more difficult because these
same resources are required (Li et al., 2018; Lillard, Drell et al., 2015). Collectively, interaction, regard-
less of fantastical content, did not hinder children’s inhibitory control. The authors reason that the
process of interacting with the content led children to perceive events as more real (or less fantasti-
cal)—dampening the potential negative effects of processing fantastical content. Therefore, in the cur-
rent study, any potentially negative effects of fantastical elements in the EduApp (e.g.,
anthropomorphic animals) may have been mitigated by the process of interaction.

Working memory and task order

As mentioned previously, our experiment had the unexpected finding that Spin the Pots perfor-
mance was significantly influenced by task order. Specifically, the advantages of the educational
app (EduApp) for working memory were strongest when the Spin the Pots task was second, following
Reverse Categorization, in other words, when the screen intervention occurred directly after the base-
line Spin the Pots measure. One possible explanation for this is that observational media had a disrup-
tive retroactive effect on memories for search strategies acquired during the baseline Spin the Pots
task—thereby making it more difficult for children to benefit from prior experience with the task
(i.e., practice effects). Although this explanation fits the data, it cannot easily account for prior work
reporting negative effects of cartoon viewing without a baseline phase (e.g., Lillard, Drell et al.,
2015; Lillard & Peterson, 2011).
Another possibility is that because many of the children found the Spin the Pots task quite easy to
perform, the task was most sensitive to the intervention condition when the children experienced
some cognitive fatigue. This could explain the task order–condition interaction because the clearest
intervention effects occurred when the Spin the Pots post-test occurred last in a relatively long
sequence of activities. Context specificity may also have played a role: It is possible that the advan-
tages and disadvantages of each media type were most apparent when the Spin the Pots task occurred
in the same temporal context at baseline and at test. In the ‘‘Spin the Pots 1st” order, the Spin the Pots
task occurred in a changing temporal context; it followed nothing at baseline and followed the media
intervention at test. In contrast, in the ‘‘Spin the Pots 2nd” order, it followed the Reverse Categoriza-
tion task during both baseline and test.
Regardless of the actual reason (or set of reasons) behind the order effects, their discovery under-
scores some important points about the time course of media effects on EF. Specifically, media effects
are not always immediately apparent, the effects can last for some time, and they can be subject to a
82 B. Huber et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85

number of possible influences. Furthermore, in neither task order was the EduApp intervention shown
to have a negative effect on children’s working memory.

Spatial content considerations

Because the Spin the Pots task is a spatial working memory task, it is worth considering whether
the educational app led to the best performance specifically because the app is designed to teach chil-
dren spatial concepts. Although this is possible and should be addressed in future work, we suggest
that it is unlikely for a number of reasons. First, the elements of spatial learning encouraged by the
app are quite distinct from the spatial skills involved in completing the Spin the Pots task. The app,
for example, focuses on identifying shapes based on the number of corners and sides. In contrast,
the spatial element of the Spin the Pots task involves keeping track of the spatial locations of objects
using featural cues of individual pots. Second, a key activity in the Shiny Party app is drawing and col-
oring in shapes. The drawing and coloring aspect to this activity has obvious similarities to Lillard and
Peterson’s (2011) condition in which children drew or colored on paper before solving a (nonspatial)
backward digit span task. Therefore, rather than the spatial nature of the app, our results are perhaps
better explained by the process of interacting in general. However, research in this area is scarce, and
much remains unknown about how digital interaction specifically affects cognition.
Yet regardless of if and how the spatial elements in the EduApp condition influenced the results, it
is notable that here media type affected EF performance on a spatial working memory task. This is an
important addition to the literature because previous studies have used nonspatial tasks (e.g., digit
span). Importantly, children’s visual–spatial working memory skills predict mathematics abilities
and achievement (Bull, Espy, & Wiebe, 2008).

Reverse categorization

Another unexpected finding was that there was no clear effect of media type on 2- and 3-year-olds’
response inhibition and task switching performance as measured by the Reverse Categorization task.
Although a solid explanation for this null result does not arise directly from the data, we suggest a
number of possible factors that may have contributed (beyond the possibility that media interactivity
and content simply do not affect task-switching performance for children of this age).
First, there were a significant number of participants performing at near-ceiling levels during base-
line testing—indicating that the task might not have provided enough of a challenge to the children,
reducing the measure’s sensitivity to media effects on EF. Second, because all children were exposed
to the task during the baseline phase, this may have inoculated them, to an extent, to negative EF
effects of the media intervention on the test trial. Indeed, these two factors may have also interacted.
It is possible that had we not used a baseline measure, the media experience would have been more
likely to disrupt performance of this otherwise easy task.
We acknowledge that prior work (Lillard, Drell et al., 2015; Lillard & Peterson, 2011) has reported
fast-paced fantastical cartoons having negative effects on general EF in preschool children, including
task switching. Of possible relevance, however, is that the dependent variable analyzed in prior work
was a combination of Head–Toes–Knees–Shoulders (HTKS, a measure of inhibition) and other cool EF
measures, and the authors did not analyze the HTKS task individually (moreover, the reported HTKS
statistics do not suggest statistical significance). Thus, it is unclear whether cartoon viewing has ever
been shown to affect task switching specifically and, if so, at what age this begins to occur.

Key implications and future directions

The current findings extend our understanding of media effects on EF in children in a number of
ways. First, our study sheds light on how screen media experiences (i.e., content and interactivity)
affects hot and cool EF in a younger cohort of children than had previously been tested. As discussed
earlier, touchscreens are ubiquitous in young children’s lives, and the effects of screen media on 2- and
3-year-olds’ EF has been insufficiently studied. Furthermore, although children in this age group have
had access to television for decades prior to the introduction of mobile touchscreen devices, they have
 B. Huber et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85 83

lacked significant access to interactive media such as video and computer games (Strommen &
Revelle, 1990). Overall, we report that although content and interactivity can have complex effects,
in no circumstances did the interactive educational app negatively affect hot or cool EF.
Second, we tested children’s baseline performance on both of the cool EF tasks used in our study.
Prior work in this area has either avoided baseline measures entirely (e.g., Lillard & Peterson, 2011) or
used a baseline task of EF that differed from the tasks used after the intervention (Lillard, Drell et al.,
2015) until the most recent addition by Li et al. (2018). It could be argued that the practice and famil-
iarity gained with the tasks during the baseline phase may have partially inoculated the children
against negative effects of subsequent media use. In other words, perhaps we would have seen a
greater effect for each type of screen media had children not practiced the same tasks at baseline
and after the intervention (as mentioned in our discussion of the lack of media effects on the Reverse
Categorization task). There is also the possibility that two testing sessions could have introduced a
degree of fatigue, leading to unanticipated findings. Although we acknowledge these possibilities, it
is also important to recognize the ecological validity of our approach. In children’s day-to-day lives,
most tasks and learning experiences are not entirely new; if screen media have effects on EF only
when used in entirely unfamiliar tasks, then these effects are arguably negligible. Thus, the current
study extends experimental child psychology research on media and EF into an ecologically valid
direction.
Third, it is notable that most of the work that inspired the current study (e.g., Lillard & Peterson,
2011) combined performance from multiple tasks into a composite measure of executive functioning
(cf. Redmayne et al., 2016). However, the lack of correlation between cool EF measures in this study
precluded us from doing this. Here, we analyzed and reported performance on individual tasks, con-
sidering task order as a factor. This analytic strategy led us to findings related to task order and indi-
vidual task performance that were unrevealable by prior work and that raise questions to be assessed
in future research. Future research could also examine educational content that is not spatial such as
literacy.
Despite some remaining ambiguities regarding task order and response inhibition, the fundamen-
tal finding of this work is that for 2- and 3-year-olds, an interactive app had a more positive effect on
immediate EF than observational video. Decades of research on children’s television has revealed that
particular content and features can affect developmental outcomes, including EF (Anderson, Levin, &
Lorch, 1977; Lillard, Drell et al., 2015; Nathanson et al., 2014; Thakkar, Garrison, & Christakis, 2006).
However, only recently have children’s media use guidelines emphasized content and interactivity,
while an assertion of limiting screen time prevails (Reid Chassiakos, Radesky, Christakis, Moreno, &
Cross, 2016).
Because apps touted as educational can vary on many dimensions, future research should investi-
gate how specific principles of app design may influence children’s EF. Hirsh-Pasek et al. (2015)
detailed that the educational potential of an app is likely to depend on its level of cognitive interac-
tivity, how well it engages children in (rather than distracting them from) the learning material, the
extent to which it presents material in a way that has meaning for the children, and whether game
play involves social interaction (e.g., Zimmermann, Moser, Lee, Gerhardstein, & Barr, 2016). We
hypothesize that apps that are designed with these principles in mind may also have more positive
effects on subsequent EF performance relative to apps that do not. For example, an app that contains
many distracting bells and whistles may have the same effects on EF as a fantastical cartoon. In
eBooks, these features are often incidental and distract children from the central storyline, impairing
recall (Bus, Takacs, & Kegel, 2015). Bells and whistles command children’s attention and require task
switching—all features of EF. After excessively using these resources to engage with extraneous fea-
tures, immediate EF performance might be impaired (Li et al., 2018; Radesky & Christakis, 2016). In
addition, the current study did not evaluate EF effects after using a noneducational touchscreen app
(i.e., a game without a learning goal). We also expect that future research will show that such apps
confer little benefit to young children’s EF—demonstrating that the benefits of interactivity may have
limits.
Future research should also investigate media effects on EF examining children with more diverse
socioeconomic backgrounds. The participants in the current study were of high socioeconomic status
(SES), and baseline averages in the Spin the Pots and Reverse Categorization tasks tended to be at the
84 B. Huber et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 170 (2018) 72–85

high end of the scale. Because the literature generally shows EF disadvantages in low-SES populations
(e.g., Calvo & Bialystok, 2014), it is important for similar studies to be carried out to determine
whether the current work (and other studies with similar participant pools) generalizes. Furthermore,
media use is disproportionately high in children of low-SES families, with most children owning their
own devices by 4 years of age (Kabali et al., 2015).
The implications of our findings include a better understanding of how we can measure and ana-
lyze young children’s executive function abilities to practical applications for guiding children’s media
use. In addition to considering the effect of task order and individual measures of EF, future work could
examine the effects of other types of screen media content. Here, interactive educational content had
positive effects on 2- and 3-year-olds’ working memory, whereas both observational fantastical enter-
tainment and educational media did not. These results add to a growing body of work demonstrating
some benefits of interactive screen media for learning and development (e.g., Bedford, Saez de
Urabain, Cheung, Karmiloff-Smith, & Smith, 2016; Choi & Kirkorian, 2016; Huber et al., 2016;
Lauricella, Pempek, Barr, & Calvert, 2010; Tarasuik, Galligan, & Kaufman, 2011, 2013; Tarasuik et al.,
2017; Wang, Xie, Wang, Hao, & An, 2016). Most important, this research demonstrates, at least for
young children’s EF, that the media experience has greater significance than the screen itself. Care
should be taken when advising parents, teachers, and other practitioners on children’s touchscreen
use guidelines, moving from the monolithic notion of ‘‘screen time” to prioritize other dimensions
of the media experience such as interactivity.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank George Collins for his passion for research and support of the Swinburne Baby-
Lab, the parents and their children who offered their time to participate in this study, and Renee Row-
sell and the BabyLab interns. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in
the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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