Howard Bailey

Date of Award

5-1981

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

The immediate effect of maximal aerobic exertion upon cognition was investigated. It was proposed that a group of trained subjects (n = 12) would perform better on both the pre-and post-cognitive test battery as compared to untrained subjects (n = 10), in which the trained . subjects engaged in an aerobic fitness test between the pre-and and post-test. It was also proposed that the aerobic fitness test would have a differential effect on the cognitive abilities of the two trained subgroups with the aerobic subgroup (n = 7) performing better than the anaerobic subgroup (n = 5) on the post test. Comparisons between the trained and untrained groups revealed only one of four cognitive subtests which distinguished a difference, that being the Paired Associate Learning task in which the trained group had significant improvement from pre-to post-test. There were no differences detected between the aerobic and anaerobic subgroups in either pre or post test cognitive performance.

It was also found that there were no differences in anxiety levels between any of the groups or subgroups on the pre-and post-test. Therefore, it was concluded that either maximal aerobic exertion had no effect upon cognition or that the design of this study was not sensitive enough to detect any differences in performance if any differences did exist. By increasing the size of the trained group, as well as varying the time the cognitive testing is administered after maximal exertion, better detection of possible changes in effect on cognition by exertion might be elucidated.

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