Marginally significant: Boys might find solo play less rewarding than joint play, whereas girls find solo and joint play equally rewarding

Exploring the Benefits of Doll Play Through Neuroscience. Salim Hashmi, Ross E. Vanderwert, Hope A. Price & Sarah A. Gerson. Front. Hum. Neurosci., October 1 2020. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.560176

Abstract: It has long been hypothesized that pretend play is beneficial to social and cognitive development. However, there is little evidence regarding the neural regions that are active while children engage in pretend play. We examined the activation of prefrontal and posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) regions using near-infrared spectroscopy while 42 4- to 8-year-old children freely played with dolls or tablet games with a social partner or by themselves. Social play activated right prefrontal regions more than solo play. Children engaged the pSTS during solo doll play but not during solo tablet play, suggesting they were rehearsing social cognitive skills more with dolls. These findings suggest social play utilizes multiple neural regions and highlight how doll play can achieve similar patterns of activation, even when children play by themselves. Doll play may provide a unique opportunity for children to practice social interactions important for developing social-emotional skills, such as empathy.

Discussion

This is the first experiment to directly test the neural correlates of play in young children. We found that the pSTS, a brain region associated with social processing and empathy, is activated when children play with a social partner, regardless of whether that play is with dolls or a tablet. Interestingly, however, when playing alone, this region is more engaged during doll play than tablet play. This supports behavioral findings that pretend play supports social processing and empathic reasoning (Dunn and Cutting, 1999; Brown et al., 2017) and raises new queries regarding the benefits of solo vs. social play.

That pSTS activity did not differ between play forms when children played with a social partner suggests that children can rehearse social perspective-taking and empathy when playing with a partner, regardless of whether that play takes the form of pretend play with dolls or creative play on a tablet. This is consistent with findings suggesting that screen-time is most beneficial for social and cognitive development when carried out interactively (e.g., Supanitayanon et al., 2020).

The interaction between social context and play type was driven by the fact that, when playing alone, there was more pSTS activity for a doll than tablet play. This provides support for Piaget’s (1962) classic claim that all pretend play is inherently social in that it allows the rehearsal of social interactions and social perspective taking (Harris, 2000). Pretend play with dolls therefore provides a unique outlet for practicing social and empathic skills even when playing by oneself.

There were no differences in terms of PFC activation, associated with executive functioning, between doll and tablet play. This implies that children did not recruit executive function skills differentially when playing with different toys. Although these findings contrast previous research finding associations between executive function and pretend play in preschool-aged children (e.g., Albertson and Shore, 2009; Kelly and Hammond, 2011), they are in line with research findings in older children where these associations are not found (Hoffman and Russ, 2012). An interaction between the hemisphere and social context of play indicated that the right PFC was more activated during joint than solo play (but this was not the case for left PFC). This suggests that social play requires more behavioral control than solo play, but why this effect is specific to the right hemisphere is an open question.

In terms of reward processing, no difference in OFC activation was found between different forms of play, but a gender by social context interaction indicated that there was marginally less activation for boys than girls during solo play. This implies that boys might find solo play less rewarding than joint play, whereas girls find solo and joint play equally rewarding. This should be interpreted with caution, however, given that the post hoc tests were only marginally significant.

The findings from this experiment are unique in that they measured brain activity during live, natural play. The play was open-ended and no instructions were given to children except to play how they would like. The fact that the pSTS, a social processing region, was activated during open-ended play thus bolsters previous laboratory-based findings indicating that this region is important for social interactions, social processing, and empathy (Lloyd-Fox et al., 2009, 2015; Redcay et al., 2010; Lahnakoski et al., 2012; Deen et al., 2015; Hakuno et al., 2018). Doll and tablet play sessions were designed such that both would allow free, creative play with no set goals or objectives. Although doll play is often categorized as an activity for girls rather than boys, we found no gender differences in brain activity when playing with either dolls or tablets. This suggests that the benefits of play are not unique to either gender.

These findings have implications for potential interventions. Previous research in 4- to 7-year-old children has found that a preference for playing alone in various play activities is associated with teachers’ ratings of the children’s behavior as asocial, experiencing peer exclusion, and is negatively associated with mother’s ratings of their social engagement (Coplan et al., 2014; Ooi et al., 2018). Whilst it could be that children prefer to play alone because they experience peer exclusion, it could also be that those who prefer solitary play do not gain the advantage in social skills afforded by social play. If pretend play with dolls does help children practice these social skills without the threat of exclusion or rejection, this could be one avenue to improve social functioning in these children.

Although measuring brain activity during natural play has many advantages, it also limits the conclusions we can draw from the current findings. Whether particular brain activity reflects rehearsal of the skills typically associated with that region cannot be directly assessed in the current experiment. Future research should build on the current findings by assessing whether individual differences in brain activity related to variability in behavior that reflects practicing these skills (e.g., empathy, perspective-taking, and executive function), and whether there is a subsequent improvement in these skills.

This research provides the first evidence that social processing brain regions are similarly active during pretend play with dolls both when playing alone or with a social partner. The fact that pSTS activation is stronger for doll play than tablet play specifically when playing alone is consistent with the notion that pretend play allows children to practice social interactions even when playing by themselves. The implications of these findings for those interested in play, neuroscience, and social development are far-reaching and are suggestive that research investigating the short- and long-term consequences of pretend play on both brain and behavior will be fruitful.