Effects of acute exercise on executive processing, short-term and long-term memory

Abstract

In the present study, we evaluated the effects of a brief bout of exercise on executive function, short-term memory, and long-term memory tests. Eighteen young adults (mean age 22.2 years, s = 1.6) performed a set-switching test, a Brown-Peterson test, and a free-recall memory test before and after 40 min of moderate aerobic exercise on a cycle ergometer, and two control conditions. Exercise did not facilitate set switching or short-term memory, which suggests that exercise-induced arousal does not influence executive function processes involved in the reconfiguration of information in working memory. Exercise did alter specific aspects of delayed long-term memory. Free recall of items in the primacy and recency portions of the word list declined following the rest and non-exercise conditions, but was maintained after exercise, which suggests that exercise-induced arousal may facilitate the consolidation of information into long-term memory.

The effect of differing intensities of acute cycling on preadolescent academic achievement

“…It is not clear why exercise should have differential effects on the four measures of academic performance. Coles and Tomporowski (2008) provided some distinction in respect to the effects of acute bouts of exercise on cognition and proposed that exercise does not influence working memory processes that involve organisation and sequencing of mental operations but can facilitate the consolidation of delayed long-term memories. This distinction is, however, unable to account for the present data as memory for letter positions and wordphoneme associations is already encoded pre-study.…”

“…The role of exercise on adult cognition has been extensively researched (for reviews see Lambourne & Tomporowski, 2010;Tomporowski, 2003), with cognitive performance assessed during exercise (McMorris & Graydon, 1996), following acute exercise (Coles & Tomporowski, 2008;Hopkins, Davis, & Vantieghem, 2012;Tomporowski, et al, 2005), and following long-term exercise exposure (e.g. Castelli, Hillman, Buck & Erwin, 2007;Hopkins et al, 2012).…”

Effects of Integrated Physical Exercises and Gestures on Preschool Children’s Foreign Language Vocabulary Learning

“…Furthermore, a meta-analysis by Chang, Labban, Gapin, and Etnier (2012) showed that acute bouts of exercise can have beneficial effects on cognitive tasks executed during, immediately after, or after a delay following the exercise. Short bouts of exercise affect cognitive processes by increasing response speed and accuracy (Tomporowski, 2003), improving working memory capacity (Pontifex, Hillman, Fernhall, Thompson, & Valentini, 2009), as well as improved performance on free-recall tasks (Coles & Tomporowski, 2008). For example, Drollette et al (2014) showed that, after 20 minutes of treadmill walking, preadolescent children had better performance on cognitive tasks gauging attention and inhibitory control compared with children who remained seated.…”

Muscles and their myokines

“…However, the relationship between physical exercise and neurocognitive function in young adults is less clear. Acutely, physical exercise seems to have little effect on memory and cognition; executive function processes involved in working memory remain unaltered, although aspects of delayed long-term memory do improve (Coles and Tomporowski, 2008;Tomporowski, 2003). Long-term physical exercise appears to have a slight effect on reaction time in young people (Sherwood and Selder, 1979).…”