Physical Exertion in Simple Reaction Time and Continuous Attention of Sport Participants

Abstract

To investigate the effect of physical exertion on simple reaction time and continuous attention of sport participants, an experiment was conducted with 46 male university students and 12 male cyclists. The subjects were assigned to three experimental and two control groups. The subjects of the experimental groups were asked to perform, following a 5-min, period of warming up, a high intensity exercise protocol for 5 min., on a mechanically braked cycle ergometer (Group A) or a moderate intensity exercise protocol for 30 min, on the same cycle ergometer (Groups B and C). Shortly before and immediately after the physical exercise subjects of all groups were asked to perform a test of simple reaction time and continuous attention. The subjects of the control groups were asked to perform at rest both tests of the simple reaction time and the continuous attention twice, with a 10-min. and a 35-min. interval between the first and second attempts, respectively. The results did not support the notion that exercise of moderate or high intensity influences significantly the cognitive performance of aerobically trained or untrained subjects. The results are discussed in the light of the current research findings concerning exertion and human psychomotor performance.

Effect of Acute Exercise on Clinically Measured Reaction Time in Collegiate Athletes

“…Tsorbatzoudis et al (36) reported similar results to our own. In this study, simple RT was neither significantly affected by the intensity nor the duration of physical exertion, but a learning effect did appear to be present in both the exercise and control groups.…”

Mental and physical effort affect vigilance differently

“…Other studies have reported both positive and negative transfer effects on performance (Adam et al, 1997;Blackwood et al, 1998;Féry et al, 1997;Verger et al, 1998). However, a lack of behavioral effects after physical effort has been reported before (Tsorbatzoudis et al, 1998) and Matsumoto et al (2002) also found the combination of subjective activating effects without behavioral effects. These findings on the one hand indicate that performance is only decreased after great exhaustion; on the other hand the results suggest that task performance does not necessarily increase as a consequence of a higher level of vigilance.…”

“…The effects of physical effort on behavioral performance are not clear. Studies have reported no effects (Tsorbatzoudis et al, 1998), negative effects (Kubitz and Pothakos, 1997), positive effects (Adam et al, 1997;Verger et al, 1998), negative effects in chronically fatigued persons (Blackwood et al, 1998), and positive effects after mild exercise, but negative effects after strenuous exercise (Féry et al, 1997). It appears that physical effort may affect performance positively, yet if sustained until sheer exhaustion, physical effort may decrease vigilance.…”

Tempo de reação de escolha de jogadores juvenis de futebol de campo e futsal

“…somente mais tarde, alguns estudos enfocaram aspectos do controle motor (13) , investigando as habilidades no esporte relacionadas à percepção de estímulos do ambiente e aspectos subjacentes a este, que, em vista do melhor desempenho de atletas com relação a não-atletas, parecia privilegiada no esporte. muitos dos estudos investigaram indicadores dos mecanismos de processamento central, como antecipação, exploração visual do ambiente, reconhecimento de situações de jogo, entre outros (13,16,18,20) .…”

“…recentes estudos têm demonstrado que atletas possuem um processamento central mais eficiente que não-atletas, provenientes de possíveis facilitações neurais concedidas pela prática esportiva (1,16,20) . Com a prática, o atleta aprende a identificar quais são os estímulos mais adequados e a probabilidade dos mesmos ocorrerem para a tomada de decisão de determinadas respostas motoras (10) .…”