Castillo-Escamilla Joaquín, Salvador-Viñas María Del Mar, Cimadevilla José Manuel
Department of Psychology, University of Almería (UAL), 04120 La Cañada, Spain.
Health Research Center, University of Almería (UAL), 04120 La Cañada, Spain.
Brain Sci. 2025 Apr 23;15(5):431. doi: 10.3390/brainsci15050431.
Physical activity (PA) has many benefits for both physical and cognitive health. It has also been related to improvements in memory and executive functions. However, its impact on time estimation remains less explored. Time is a key component of episodic memory, which also involves spatial components to give a full context to events. Given the clear evidence of the benefits of PA in spatial navigation and the anatomical overlap with temporal estimation through the hippocampus, the latter could be affected in a similar way. Therefore, this study aimed to check how PA can influence time processing and spatial memory. We wanted to check if PA influenced time and space with the same directionality. Forty-two ( = 42) female university students participated in this study, divided into a Sport ( = 25) or Sedentary ( = 17) Group depending on their participation in PA for a minimum of 3 h a week. They were addressed in two different cognitive capabilities. The first was time processing, measured by the Time Comparison Task, which controlled for several key aspects of time literature in its design. Moreover, we measured spatial navigation skills, using a well-proven virtual spatial navigation task, The Boxes Room. Accuracy and mean response times were registered per task. Significant correlations were observed between spatial and temporal task performance. In addition, PA influenced spatial and time processing in a similar way, with the Sport Group outperforming the Sedentary Group in accuracy and response times for both tasks. These findings provide evidence that PA influences time processing similarly to its established effects on spatial memory, which could help developing sports programs that further enhance this skill.
身体活动（PA）对身体和认知健康都有诸多益处。它还与记忆和执行功能的改善有关。然而，其对时间估计的影响仍较少被探索。时间是情景记忆的关键组成部分，情景记忆还涉及空间成分，以便为事件提供完整的背景。鉴于有明确证据表明身体活动在空间导航方面有益，且通过海马体在解剖学上与时间估计存在重叠，后者可能会受到类似影响。因此，本研究旨在检验身体活动如何影响时间处理和空间记忆。我们想检验身体活动是否以相同的方向性影响时间和空间。42名女大学生参与了本研究，根据她们每周至少参与3小时身体活动的情况分为运动组（n = 25）或久坐组（n = 17）。她们接受了两种不同认知能力的测试。第一种是时间处理，通过时间比较任务进行测量，该任务在设计中控制了时间文献的几个关键方面。此外，我们使用经过充分验证的虚拟空间导航任务“盒子房间”来测量空间导航技能。记录每个任务的准确性和平均反应时间。在空间和时间任务表现之间观察到显著相关性。此外，身体活动以类似方式影响空间和时间处理，运动组在两项任务的准确性和反应时间方面均优于久坐组。这些发现提供了证据，表明身体活动对时间处理的影响与其对空间记忆的既定影响相似，这有助于制定进一步提高这项技能的体育项目。
