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Category: Project

Description: In the last years, a substantial body of work has depicted a positive association between regular practice of physical exercise and cognition. Despite the progress on this topic, the key factors driving that link are still a matter of scientific debate. Here, we aimed to further contribute to that body of work by pooling the data from seven studies (N=361) to examine whether VO2 (index of cardiovascular fitness), type of sport expertise (externally-paced and self-paced vs. sedentary), or both (controlling for sex, age and the method of VO2 estimation), are crucial factors to explain the association between the regular practice of exercise and vigilance capacity (measured by means of reaction time -RT- in the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT)). The results showed that sport expertise was significantly related to RT, with only externally-paced sport differing from the sedentary condition (and also from the self-paced sport condition). Both the multilevel linear mixed-effects modelling and bayesian analyses confirmed the absence of effect of VO2 and self-paced sport practice (with respect to the sedentary condition) on RT. Additionally, age was the sole other variable that significantly explained RT variance. In conclusion, the results of this brief report pointed to the relevance of considering the type of sport expertise and the cognitive demands inherent to its practice above the level of cardiovascular fitness as crucial factor to explain the positive association between the regular practice of exercise and vigilance capacity.