Browsing by Author "Kessafoglu, Dilara"

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Citation Count: 0
Immediate and delayed effects of fantastical content on children's executive functions and mental transformation
(Elsevier Science inc, 2024) Kessafoglu, Dilara; Kuntay, Aylin; Uzundag, Berna A.
Watching fantastical content has been shown to negatively affect young children's executive function (EF) skills. No study has investigated how long these negative effects persist and whether they extend to other cognitive skills. The current experimental study aimed to (1) detect how long fantastical content affects children's EF performance and (2) examine whether watching fantastical content negatively affects children's other (non-EF) cognitive task performance, namely mental transformation. A total of 120 5- and 6year-old children (M = 66 months, SD = 5.52) were randomly assigned to one of the four following conditions: (a) immediate testing after watching an 8-min non-fantastical cartoon, (b) immediate testing after watching an 8-min fantastical cartoon, (c) 10min delayed testing after watching a fantastical cartoon, and (d) immediate testing after an 8-min free play (control condition). After exposure to each condition, children were tested on EF and mental transformation measures. Results showed that children watching a fantastical cartoon performed worse on working memory and inhibitory control tasks than children watching a nonfantastical cartoon or playing. However, the 10-min delay between the watching and testing sessions eliminated the negative impact observed on inhibitory control. Groups did not differ on cognitive flexibility and mental transformation. As in previous studies, watching fantastical content negatively affected children's EFs, but this negative impact disappeared in a few minutes and seems unique to EFs. These results suggest that fantastical content may
Citation Count: 1
Relations Among Self-Reported Maternal Stress, Smartphone Use, and Mother-Child Interactions
(Springer, 2022) Uzundag, Berna A.; Oranc, Cansu; Kessafoglu, Dilara; Altundal, Merve Nur
A growing body of research indicates that parents' smartphone use is associated with interruptions in parent-child interactions and lower levels of parental responsiveness, which may adversely affect children's cognitive and socioemotional development. Studies suggest that parent-child interactions are more frequently interrupted by the use of screen-based devices if parents experience more stress specifically resulting from the demands of parenting, yet there are unexamined questions. Is parents' general daily stress related to technology-based interruptions in parent-child interactions? If so, does parents' use of mobile technology mediate this relationship? In this first study testing the mediating role of parental use of mobile phones between parental stress and technology-based interruptions in parent-child interactions, we collected data from 604 mothers of children younger than age six with an online survey. Results showed that controlling for child age, family income, mothers' employment status, household size, and maternal and paternal education, more stressed mothers reported using their mobile phones more problematically (e.g., not being able to resist checking messages), which was linked to more frequent perceived interruptions in the interactions with their children. Our results suggest that using mobile phones may serve as an outlet for stressed parents and is related to disruptions in the flow of parent-child interactions.
Citation Count: 1
Screen Media Exposure in Early Childhood and Its Relation to Children's Self-Regulation
(Wiley-Hindawi, 2022) Uzundag, Berna A.; Altundal, Merve Nur; Kessafoglu, Dilara
Self-regulation, the ability to control thoughts, emotions, and behavior for goal-directed activities, shows rapid development in infancy, toddlerhood, and preschool periods. Early self-regulatory skills predict later academic achievement and socioemotional adjustment. An increasing number of studies suggest that screen media use may have negative effects on children's developing self-regulatory skills. In this systematic review, we summarized and integrated the findings of the studies investigating the relationship between young children's screen media use and their self-regulation. We searched the ERIC, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Web of Science databases and identified 39 relevant articles with 45 studies. We found that screen time in infancy is negatively associated with self-regulation, but findings were more inconsistent for later ages suggesting that screen time does not adequately capture the extent of children's screen media use. The findings further indicated that background TV is negatively related to children's self-regulation, and watching fantastical content seems to have immediate negative effects on children's self-regulatory skills. We suggest that future studies should take the content and context of children's screen media use into account and also focus on parent- and home-related factors such as parental behaviors that foster the development of self-regulatory skills.