Intentional thought dynamics during exercise performed until volitional exhaustion

Abstract

Using a non-linear approach, intentional dynamics of thoughts were examined during constant cycling performed until volitional exhaustion. Participants (n = 12) completed two sessions at 80% Wmax. Their (1) intrinsic thought dynamics (i.e., no-imposed thoughts condition) and (2) intentional thought dynamics (i.e., imposed task-unrelated thoughts condition; TUT) were recorded and then classified into four categories: internal and external TUT (TUT-I, TUT-E) and external and internal task-related thoughts (TRT-E, TRT-I). The probability estimates for maintaining each thought category stable, the rate of switching from one category to another, and the entropy dynamics along the testing procedure were assessed and compared through time phase. Friedman ANOVA tests revealed a significant effect of effort increase on thought contents only in the imposed TUT test. While TUT-I probabilities decreased significantly (P < .001) as effort increased, TRT-I probabilities increased (P < .05). Moreover, the entropy to the entire thought dynamics increased at the outset of task performance and decreased upon approaching volitional exhaustion (P < .001). As time spent in constant effort increased, and volitional exhaustion approached, task relatedness (TUT, TRT), direction (internal, external), and entropy of thought contents changed unintentionally providing further evidence for a nonlinear dynamics of attention focus.

Cortical substrates of the effects of caffeine and time-on-task on perception of effort

“…Therefore, we speculate that time-on-task has significant effects on the complex neurocognitive processing of corollary discharges, and that these changes in neurocognitive processing contribute to the progressive increase in perception of effort observed during prolonged exercise. This proposal is supported by studies showing that time-on-task has significant effects on various aspects of attentional focus during cycling exercise to exhaustion (4), and that changes in attentional focus can affect RPE and exercise tolerance (37). Future studies on the cortical substrates of perception of effort should develop novel methods to investigate changes in corollary discharges and their neurocognitive processing during ordinary endurance exercise activities, such as running and cycling (54).…”

Investigating the relationship between cognitions, pacing strategies and performance in 16.1 km cycling time trials using a think aloud protocol

“…As metacognitive judgements are made throughout an exercise bout, an athlete may proactively deem their current attentional focus as no longer appropriate in-line with goal attainment and the changing demands of the task, for example the distance remaining or behaviour of a competitor (Brick et al, 2016;Bertollo, di Fronso & Filho et al, 2015). Alternatively, this may also stem from a bottom-up process driven by the increased perceptions of effort (Balagué, Hristovski & Garcia, et al, 2015) resulting in a greater need for active cognitive control to optimise pace. Consequently, as proposed by Brick et al (2016), the data suggests a combination of reactive and proactive cognitive control becomes more evident as athletes attempt to deal with increasing demands and maintain an optimal pacing strategy to achieve goal attainment.…”

Cardiorespiratory Coordination in Repeated Maximal Exercise

“…The larger number of available states is a direct consequence of the decreased co-variation among the cardiorespiratory variables, changing more independently from one another. It has been recently used to analyse CRC in several research fields, such as obstructive sleep apnea (Chang et al, 2013), online gaming (Chang et al, 2015), mental stress (Widjaja et al, 2015), or to investigate thought dynamics during an exhausting cycling exercise (Balagué et al, 2014). Nevertheless, entropy has not been used together with the PCA approach to analyse CRC within exercise settings.…”