Cognitive Function and Acute Aerobic Exercise Intensities: Investigating the Role of Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity

The aim of this research was to investigate the implicit and explicit cognitive processes during and after the cessation of the aerobic acute exercises with different intensities in individuals with different working memory capacity (WMC) based on the transient hypofrontality thesis. Participants consist of 60 males (30 high WMC and 30 low WMC) with moderate level of physical fitness (age: 20.82 ± 2.2; VO2max = 49.33 ± 6 ml. kg. min) by different cycling intensities (80-90%, 60-70% and 40-50% maximum heart rate) and WMC were divided randomly to six groups of 10 people . Implicit (choice reaction time) and explicit (stroop) cognitive tests were administered in four different times before, during, 1 and 15 minute after the cessation of the exercise. Results of ANOVA through repeated measures and between groups factor revealed the main effect of time was significant for the implicit cognitive process (p<0.05). Main effects of the time and group interactions were significant in explicit cognitive process (p<0.05). Based on the Bonferroni correction, there was a significant difference between high and low intensity groups (more interference in high intensity group) (p<0.05) but there was no difference between the individuals with high and low WMC in the same intensities. The results of this research showed that the transient hypofrontality occurs during high intensity aerobic acute exercise and WMC has no effects on the emergence of this temporary change.

Explicit; Implicit; Reaction time; Stroop; Transient Hypofrontality