The effects of fantastical pretend-play on the development of executive functions: An intervention study

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Highlights

  • Children in a fantasy-play intervention showed improved executive functions.

  • Children in non-imaginative play and control conditions showed no improvements.

  • Children who were highly engaged in the fantastical play showed the greatest gains.

  • Children whose play was highly fantastical also demonstrated the greatest gains.

Abstract

Although recent correlational studies have found a relationship between fantasy orientation (FO; i.e., a child’s propensity to play in a fantastical realm) and higher order cognitive skills called executive functions (EFs), no work has addressed the causality and directionality of this relationship. The current study experimentally examined the directionality of the observed relationship between FO and EF development in preschool-aged children through an innovative play intervention employing a randomized controlled design. A sample of 110 children between the ages of 3 and 5 years were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: fantastical pretend-play intervention, non-imaginative play intervention, or business-as-usual control. Results revealed that children who participated in a 5-week fantastical pretend-play intervention showed improvements in EFs, whereas children in the other two conditions did not. Within the fantastical pretend-play condition, children who were highly engaged in the play and those who were highly fantastical demonstrated the greatest gains in EFs. These data provide evidence for the equifinal relationship between fantasy-oriented play and EF development, such that engaging in fantasy-oriented play may be one of many ways to directly enhance EF development.

Introduction

Due to recent declines in academic performance throughout the United States, there has been a surge of research during the past 10 years aimed at understanding the development of cognitive control. This accumulation of research demonstrates the importance of cognitive control not only to everyday functioning but also to academic achievement, job performance, and overall well-being (Dunn, 2010, Eakin et al., 2004, Moffitt et al., 2011, St Clair-Thompson and Gathercole, 2006). One of the main foci that has emerged from the body of research on cognitive control is a category of cognitive abilities referred to as executive functions (EFs).

Executive functions are defined as higher order thinking processes that allow individuals to override more automatic thoughts and behaviors for more adaptive and goal-directed responses (Carlson, 2005). Some of the most important cognitive processes included under the umbrella term of executive function are working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility (Miyake et al., 2000, St Clair-Thompson and Gathercole, 2006). Working memory is defined as the temporary storage of information, which allows individuals to manipulate information as they cognitively process it (Baddeley, 1983, Baddeley, 1992). Inhibitory control refers to individuals’ ability to suppress an automatic prepotent response (Stroop, 1935, Wright et al., 2003). Finally, cognitive flexibility, also referred to as attentional shift, refers to individuals’ ability to shift their attention back and forth between two different domains (Monsell, 1996).

Unfortunately, research indicates that EF abilities do not automatically develop and mature over the lifespan but rather benefit from rich environmental experiences (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2011). In fact, children raised in adverse environments (e.g., environments characterized by abuse and neglect) exhibit serious deficits in cognitive, attentional, and behavioral control, suggesting that EFs are at risk for disruption at an early age (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2011). Therefore, the literature calls for research investigating the development of EFs during early childhood.

As Vygotsky (1978) theorized, complex pretend-play may provide a natural environmental experience in which cognitive skills can be developed. Specifically, Vygotsky reasoned that imaginative play is instrumental to the development of children’s ability to think about objects and events that are not immediately present (i.e., internal systems of representation; Vygotsky, 1967). As children enter the preschool years, their play becomes more abstract and less dependent on actual objects or props (Woolley & Tullos, 2008). For example, children at this age will pretend to bounce an imaginary ball or pretend to cook and eat an imaginary meal. Because they are able to use abstract concepts in their play, children at this age are able to enrich their play with fantastical themes.

The term fantasy orientation (FO) refers to children’s propensity to play in a fantastical realm and is often operationalized in children as the extent to which they engage in imaginary play and whether or not they have imaginary companions (Taylor, 1999). Although there are clear individual differences in children’s level of FO (Taylor & Carlson, 1997), to date few studies have investigated the impact of children’s level of FO on their cognitive control. One possibility is that having more advanced EFs provides individuals with the capacities needed to engage in fantasy-oriented behaviors. However, this explanation is less likely given that incidence rates of high fantastical thinking are consistent during childhood and adulthood (Woolley, 1997) and that fantasy is measured as a part of the openness personality trait that is stable across the lifespan (McCrae, 1987, McCrae, 1993). By contrast, research indicates that EFs develop as individuals progress through childhood (Diamond & Taylor, 1996). Another possibility is that the act of engaging in fantasy-oriented behaviors facilitates the development of EFs. Similar to the cognitive flexibility needed for bilingualism, the act of engaging in imaginary play and having imaginary companions requires that children switch back and forth between fantasy and reality (Estes et al., 1989, Golumb and Kuersten, 1996) and, thus, use working memory to remember pretense rules and scripts, inhibit using pretense scripts in real life, and shift attention back and forth between reality and pretense. Therefore, it seems logical that FO would be related in some fashion to EF development.

Sound empirical evidence of a relationship between FO and EF has only recently emerged. Specifically, Pierucci, O’Brien, McInnis, Gilpin, and Barber (2014) interviewed preschoolers between the ages of 4 and 6 years using measures of EF (i.e., inhibitory control, attention shift, and working memory) and FO. Pierucci and colleagues found that children exhibiting high FO (i.e., engaging in fantasy-oriented cognitions, belief in fantasy-oriented entities) displayed better cognitive inhibition and attentional shift than children exhibiting low or moderate levels of FO. In addition, Carlson, White, and Davis-Unger (2014) found positive correlations between EFs (i.e., inhibitory control, attention shift, and working memory) and the understanding of pretend versus reality as well as the ability to perform pretend actions among preschool children. Furthermore, when subjected to a regression analysis, Carlson and colleagues found that the understanding of pretense versus reality significantly predicted EF scores and that the ability to perform pretend actions marginally predicted EF scores.

Despite the observed relationship between FO and EF in preschoolers, the correlational nature of these findings leaves open questions regarding the directionality of these relationships (Carlson et al., 2014, Pierucci et al., 2014). A recent meta-analysis in the field called for experimental investigations of the effects of pretend-play on cognitive control (Lillard et al., 2013) because many previous studies that have explored EFs in the context of pretend-play have several methodological limitations and, therefore, are inconclusive. In addition, all previous experimental studies on play and EFs have specifically investigated pretense (Lillard et al., 2013). Pretense is a type of imaginative play in which children pretend to be an animal or another person (Woolley & Tullos, 2008) but does not necessarily involve the same fantastical elements as fantasy-oriented activities and cognitions. For example, pretense could involve pretending to drive a car, whereas fantasy-oriented play would involve flying a car in outer space. Interestingly, Pierucci and colleagues (2014) found that, unlike fantasy-oriented activities and cognitions, pretense did not correlate with any measures of EF. Thus, it appears that fantasy may be a crucial element to the observed relationship between play and EFs.

Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to experimentally determine the causality and directionality of the observed relationship between FO and EFs through the training of fantasy-oriented play in preschool-aged children. To accomplish this, the first aim of the current study was to investigate how pretend-play with a fantastical component affects development differentially from non-imaginative play. The second aim was to examine how fantasy-oriented imaginative play differs from maturation alone with regard to the development of EFs. A sample of 110 preschoolers between the ages of 3 and 5 years were pre-tested on several measures of FO, pretense, and EF (i.e., working memory, inhibitory control, and attention shift). Participants were then randomly assigned to one of three conditions: fantastical pretend-play, non-imaginative play, or control. After 5 weeks of intervention, participants were tested using similar pre-test measures of EF and FO. Pre-test to post-test changes in EF and FO scores were compared among conditions.

Because previous research demonstrates a relationship between being fantasy oriented and performance on various EF tasks (Pierucci et al., 2014), it was hypothesized that engaging in fantastical pretend-play would facilitate the development of EFs. Specifically, it was expected that there would be a significant difference among intervention conditions on post-test measures of EFs, such that children in the fantastical pretend-play condition would show an increase in EF abilities beyond that of children in the non-imaginative play and no-intervention conditions. It should be noted, however, that FO was not hypothesized to change over the course of the intervention period. In fact, it is highly unlikely that FO would show any changes over time due to its perceived stability. Rather, it was expected that engaging in fantastical pretend-play would create an enriched environment through which EFs could be scaffolded.

Section snippets

Participants

A total of 121 participants were recruited for the current study. Of these children, 2 were excluded from the study because they scored below the 20th percentile on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, a measure of receptive vocabulary, and 9 were excluded because they did not complete post-test assessments (5 from the non-imaginative play condition and 4 from the control condition). Therefore, the final sample of the current study consisted of 110 preschoolers between the ages of 3 and 5 years (

Preliminary analyses

There were a total of 39 children in the fantastical pretend-play condition (19 male and 20 female), 32 children in the non-imaginative play condition (16 male and 16 female), and 39 children in the control condition (16 male and 23 female). The average age of children was 51 months (SD = 10.09) in the fantastical pretend-play condition, 54 months (SD = 9.09) in the non-imaginative play condition, and 52 months (SD = 9.74) in the control condition. The conditions did not differ significantly on age,

Discussion

The purpose of the current study was to experimentally determine whether or not the repeated act of engaging in fantasy-oriented behaviors facilitates the development of EFs beyond what would be observed due to simple maturation or engaging in non-fantasy play. The main hypothesis was supported, such that children in the fantastical pretend-play condition showed improvements in working memory (i.e., Forward Digit Span task) and attention shift (i.e., Card Sort task) performance beyond that of

Acknowledgment

The authors are grateful for funding for this research from the University of Alabama Research Grants Committee and to the schools, families, teachers, and research assistants who made this research possible.

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