Intense Physical Exercise Reduces Overt Attentional Capture.

The abrupt onset of a visual stimulus typically results in overt attentional capture, which can be quantified by saccadic eye movements. Here, we tested whether attentional capture following onset of task-irrelevant visual stimuli (new object) is reduced after a bout of intense physical exercise. A group of participants performed a visual search task in two different activity conditions: rest, without any prior effort, and effort, immediately after an acute bout of intense exercise. The results showed that participants exhibited (1) slower reaction time of the first saccade toward the target when a new object was simultaneously presented in the visual field, but only in the rest activity condition, and (2) more saccades to the new object in the rest activity condition than in the effort activity condition. We suggest that immediately after an acute bout of effort, participants improved their ability to inhibit irrelevant (distracting) stimuli.

Chronic participation in externally paced, but not self-paced sports is associated with the modulation of domain-general cognition.

The present study investigated the role of chronic sport participation in the modulation of vigilance and inhibitory control. We also aimed to disentangle the relative contribution of different types of sport expertise and sport-related fitness to the exercise-cognition relationship. Three groups of young adults differing in their chronic sport expertise (externally-paced sports, n = 22, self-paced sports, n = 22, non-athletes, n = 22) took part in the study. Participants completed a cardiovascular fitness test, a hand-eye coordination test and two different types of vigilance tasks: (1) Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) and (2) Oddball Task, which were designed to gain insight into the cognitive processes involved in sustaining attention over time and allocating selective attention by exerting inhibitory control, respectively. No differences were found in PVT performance between the two athlete groups and between self-paced sports athletes and non-athletes, whereas athletes from externally-paced sports outperformed non-athletes. Crucially, athletes from externally-paced sports also differed from those of self-paced sports and non-athletes in the Oddball task, showing less omission and commission errors. The sport expertise effect was independent of participant's cardiovascular fitness while hand-eye coordination modulated vigilance and inhibitory control performance. Our findings add novel empirical evidence to the role of expertise in cognitively demanding sports as an important factor in the relationship between exercise and cognition.

Differences in Sustained Attention Capacity as a Function of Aerobic Fitness.

PURPOSE: We investigated the relationship between aerobic fitness and sustained attention capacity by comparing task performance and brain function, by means of event-related potentials (ERP), in high- and low-fit young adults. METHODS: Two groups of participants (22 higher-fit and 20 lower-fit) completed a 60-min version of the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT). Behavioral (i.e., reaction time) and electrophysiological (ERP) (i.e., contingent negative variation and P3) were obtained and analyzed as a function of time-on-task. A submaximal cardiorespiratory fitness test confirmed the between-groups difference in terms of aerobic fitness. RESULTS: The results revealed shorter reaction time in higher-fit than in lower-fit participants in the first 36 min of the task. This was accompanied by larger contingent negative variation amplitude in the same period of the task in higher-fit than in lower-fit group. Crucially, higher-fit participants maintained larger P3 amplitude throughout the task compared to lower-fit, who showed a reduction in the P3 magnitude over time. CONCLUSIONS: Higher fitness was related to neuroelectric activity suggestive of better overall sustained attention demonstrating a better ability to allocate attentional resources over time. Moreover, higher fitness was related to enhanced response preparation in the first part of the task. Taken together, the current data set demonstrated a positive association between aerobic fitness, sustained attention, and response preparation.

The influence of acute intense exercise on exogenous spatial attention depends on physical fitness level.

We investigated the effect of a previous bout of intense exercise on exogenous spatial attention. In Experiment 1, a group of participants performed an exogenous spatial task at rest (without prior effort), immediately after intense exercise, and after recovering from an intense exercise. The analyses revealed that the typical "facilitation effect" (i.e., faster reaction times on cued than on uncued trials) immediately after exercise was positively correlated with participants' fitness level. In Experiment 2, a high-fit and a low-fit group performed the same task at rest (without prior effort) and immediately after an intense exercise. Results revealed that, after the bout of exercise, only low-fit participants showed reduced attentional effects compared to the rest condition. We argue that the normal functioning of exogenous attention was influenced by intense effort, affecting low-fit participants to a larger extent than to high-fit participants. As a consequence, target processing was prioritized over irrelevant stimuli.

The relationship between regular sports participation and vigilance in male and female adolescents.

The present study investigated the relationship between regular sport participation (soccer) and vigilance performance. Two groups of male and female adolescents differentiated in terms of their sport participation (athletes, n = 39, and non-athletes, n = 36) took part in the study. In one session, participants performed the Leger Multi-stage fitness test to estimate their aerobic fitness level. In the other session, participants completed the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) to evaluate their vigilance performance. Perceived arousal prior to the task and motivation toward the task were also measured in the PVT session. The results revealed that athletes had better cardiovascular fitness and showed better performance in the PVT. However, correlation analyses did not show any significant relationship between cardiovascular fitness and performance in the PVT. Athletes showed larger scores in motivation and perceived arousal measures with respect to non-athletes, although, once again, these variables were not correlated with PVT performance. Gender differences were observed only in the Leger test, with males showing greater fitness level than females. The major outcome of this research points to a positive relationship between regular sport participation and vigilance during adolescence. This relationship did not seem to be influenced by gender, perceived arousal, motivation toward the task or cardiovascular fitness. We discuss our results in terms of the different hypotheses put forward in the literature to explain the relationship between physical activity and cognitive functioning.

The Effects of Eight-Month Physical Activity Intervention on Vigilance Performance in Adult Obese Population.

We aim to analyze the effects of an 8-month physical activity intervention on cardiorespiratory fitness, body mass index (BMI), and vigilance performance in an adult obese population. We conducted an 8-month physical activity intervention based on dance and rhythmic activities. The weekly frequency was 2 sessions of 1 hr per day. Training sessions were divided into 3 phases: a 10-min warm-up, 40 min of dance and rhythmic activities, and 10 min to cool-down. To assess cardiorespiratory fitness, participants performed a modified version of the 6-min walk test from the Senior Fitness Test battery (Larsson & Mattsson, 2001; Rikli & Jones, 1999). Vigilance performance was measured by means of the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT). Two measurements were performed immediately before and after the intervention. The results revealed that participants improved their cardiorespiratory fitness, BMI, and vigilance performance after the intervention. All in all, findings contribute new empirical evidence to the field that investigates the benefits of physical activity intervention on cognitive processes in obese population.