Do children know that fantastic events in television programs are not real?

Abstract

Television programs are loved by children and often contain fantastic events. Do preschoolers know that fantastic events cannot occur in daily life? This study systematically investigated whether children can accurately distinguish between real and fantastic events. In study 1, 90 3- to 5-year-old children watched 16 cartoon clips of fantastic and real events that elicited positive or negative emotions. After watching each cartoon clip, the children were asked whether they thought that the event could actually occur in real life. The results indicate that for real events, the children's distinction accuracy of positive events was higher than their accuracy of negative events. In study 2, 90 3- to 5-year-old children were shown 16 animations with liveaction segments of fantastic and real events that elicited positive or negative emotions. Again, for real events, the children's distinction accuracy of positive events was higher than their accuracy of negative events. However, in contrast to the results of study 1, the 3-year-old children scored significantly higher for negative fantastic events than positive fantastic events, while the effects of the emotional content of the events were not significant among the children aged 4 and 5 years. By comparing study 1 and study 2, we found that when only fantastic events were considered, 3-year-olds are better at identifying positive events in cartoons than in live-action animations. The opposite happens when fantasy events are considered.