Screen-time influences children's mental imagery performance.

Mental imagery is a foundational human faculty that depends on active image construction and sensorimotor experiences. However, children now spend a significant proportion of their day engaged with screen-media, which (a) provide them with ready-made mental images, and (b) constitute a sensory narrowing whereby input is typically focused on the visual and auditory modalities. Accordingly, we test the idea that screen-time influences the development of children's mental imagery with a focus on mental image generation and inspection from the visual and haptic domains. In a longitudinal cross-lagged panel design, children (n = 266) aged between 3 and 9 years were tested at two points in time, 10 months apart. Measures of screen-time and mental imagery were employed, alongside a host of control variables including working memory, vocabulary, demographics, device ownership, and age of exposure to screen-media. Findings indicate a statistically significant path from screen-time at time 1 to mental imagery at time 2, above and beyond the influence of the control variables. These unique findings are discussed in terms of the influence of screen-time on mental imagery.

Fine motor skills and mental imagery: Is it all in the mind?

Previous work has indicated that children's fine motor skills (FMS) contribute to cognitive performance in a number of domains. A philosophically and scientifically central aspect of cognitive skill is the ability to mentally simulate external events; however, very little research has examined whether FMS relate to mental imagery. Children aged 35-129 months (N = 294) were administered measures of FMS and mental imagery. Control variables included working memory, vocabulary, visual closure, chronological age, and a vast array of stimulus lexical features. Multilevel linear models indicated that FMS uniquely predicted mental imagery abilities, as did visual closure, chronological age, and various lexical features, whereas working memory and vocabulary did not. Findings are taken to support the idea that both mental imagery and FMS share, in part, similar functional systems.