You have a toy with batteries in it that has an on/off switch. The batteries are in, the switch is on, but no one is touching the toy to make it talk/light up/whatever. By looking at it, you cannot tell it is “on”. Is battery life being used, and if so, is it at the same rate as it is if the toy is being actively used?
Depends on the toy.
Lots of toys nowadays have microprocessors and ASICs in them. Often, when you turn the power switch on, some of the electronics will be powered, and the toy is “waiting” for you to do something. I would call this the “idle power.” Idle power is usually pretty low.
When you do something, and the toy responds by lighting LEDs and making noises, more power will be consumed from the battery. When the lights and sound go off the electronics will go back to idle power.
But again, it depends a lot on the toy.
There is probably some amount of standby current in order to power sensing circuitry, based on the brief description of the toy. However, this is probably small compared to the active draw, when motors and lights are being powered. The only way to be sure, of course, is to connect an ammeter and actually measure the current under various conditions, but it’s a fair bet my initial assessment is correct.