Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, USA.
Dev Psychol. 2012 Sep;48(5):1501-10. doi: 10.1037/a0026648. Epub 2011 Dec 12.
The current study examined an important aspect of experience--physical activity--that may contribute to children's executive function. The design attempted to tease apart 2 important aspects of children's exercise by examining the separate and combined effects of acute physical activity and cognitive engagement on an aspect of children's executive functioning. In a 2 × 2 within-subject experimental design, children (N = 33, 6 to 10 years old) completed activities that varied systematically in both physical activity (physically active video games versus sedentary video activities) and cognitive engagement (challenging and interactive video games versus repetitive video activities). Cognitive functioning, including executive function, was assessed after each activity by a modified flanker task (Rueda et al., 2004). Whereas cognitive engagement had no effect on any aspect of task performance, physical activity (i.e., exergaming) enhanced children's speed to resolve interference from conflicting visuospatial stimuli. Age comparisons indicated improvements with age in the accuracy of resolving interference and in overall response time. The results extend past research by showing more precisely how physical activity influences executive function and how this effect differs from the improvements that occur with development.
本研究考察了经验的一个重要方面——身体活动，它可能有助于儿童的执行功能。该设计试图通过考察急性身体活动和认知参与对儿童执行功能的一个方面的单独和联合影响，来区分儿童锻炼的两个重要方面。在一项 2×2 的被试内实验设计中，儿童（N=33，6-10 岁）完成了在身体活动（身体活跃的视频游戏与久坐的视频活动）和认知参与（具有挑战性和互动性的视频游戏与重复性的视频活动）方面系统变化的活动。在每项活动后，通过修改的侧抑制任务（Rueda 等人，2004）评估认知功能，包括执行功能。虽然认知参与对任务表现的任何方面都没有影响，但身体活动（即，锻炼游戏）提高了儿童解决冲突的视觉空间刺激的速度。年龄比较表明，在解决干扰的准确性和整体反应时间方面，随着年龄的增长而有所提高。研究结果通过更精确地展示身体活动如何影响执行功能，以及这种影响与发展过程中发生的改进有何不同，扩展了以往的研究。
