I suppose that's possible, but we were trying to steer away from either extreme -- it wasn't as though we replaced her Barbies with GI Joes, we just bought Lego

I suppose that's possible, but we were trying to steer away from either extreme -- it wasn't as though we replaced her Barbies with GI Joes, we just bought Legos instead. We tried to ensure that all her toes were educational, even if it wasn't the focus of the toy (i.e., we didn't try to eliminate 'fun'.) That said, we weren't doing anything in particular to keep her away from commercials, or limiting social interactions from her peers or anything, so there really wasn't much of a 'control' group whatsoever.