Running head: EXERCISE ON MEMORY OF HS STUDENTS 1

Effects of Acute Exercise on Working Memory of High School Students

Student Name

PSY 290-Research Methods

Dr. Lorraine Festa

Arizona State University

April 21, 2019

Abstract

The present study attempted to achieve 2 goals. The first, to support to growing body of research

the reports on the positive effects of exercise and cognitive function, the second, to further

expand on those effects by exploring the degree to which exercise impacts cognitive function in

the context of time. The average grades of 15 classes (3 classes, 5 schools) in the New York City

Public HS were recorded from a test administered in a linguistics class after varying periods of

exercise and rest. Classes participated in a 2-way between-subjects design as part of a naturalistic

observation in which the performance of working memory between different time intervals were

measured. The results showed that exercise indeed had a positive effect on working memory and

that longer periods of rest between exercise and linguistic recall had more benefit than shorter

periods of rest but did not identify a point of diminishing returns. These findings support our

hypothesis, students who perform tasks related to working memory after a bout of exercise and a

period of rest between 1 to 2 hours show significant improvement.

The Effect of Exercise on Working Memory

There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that acute exercise improves cognitive

function (Komiyama, 2015; Chang, 2012; Lambourne, 2010; McMorris, 2011). These

improvements can be attributed to many factors like blood-oxygen saturation. It is well

documented that daily exercise has a direct impact on mental capabilities due to the

physiological changes produced by exercise as observed by Komiyama, Sudo, Hikagi, Tanaka,

and Ando (2015) when they exposed participants to acute bouts of exercise in a high altitude

environment; or they can increase the secretion of beneficial hormones that directly effect the

brain as observed by Etnier, Wideman, Labban, Piepmeier, Pendleton, Dvorak, and Becofsky

(2016) when they had participants complete 3 exercise sessions at different intensities to measure

the amount of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). Exercise triggers the human body to

release a multitude of hormones that stimulate neurotransmitters. These reactions alone, lead to

healthier brain function by relieving stress and improving cognitive function. Working memory

is the ability of the brain to recall immediate pieces of information relating to perception and

linguistics, it is often fleeting or hard to recall after a period of rest. Further research in to the

link between exercise and mental function could be used to create optimal school schedules that

allow students to perform cognitive tasks at a higher level.

The results above show there is a positive correlation between exercise and brain

function, but the specific degree and magnitude of that correlation is still a mystery to scientists.

The common recommendation from medical practitioners is one hour of exercise a day will

suffice but that does not indicate when this activity would be most useful or how intense the

activity should be for it to provide benefits to cognitive function. The current study attempted to
EXERCISE ON MEMORY OF HS STUDENTS 4

close the gap in knowledge between time intervals of exercise and cognitive function,

particularly working memory. Chang (2012) and McMorris (2011) established the relationship

between exercise and cognitive function, the present study attempted to expand on those findings

by observing levels of cognitive function at different intervals of time between activities. Adding

to the current findings that exercise and cognition are linked, the study further establishes that

point and expands on it by exploring the timing that makes exercise most beneficial to the

individual. The expectation is that individuals will exhibit varying levels of improvement in

working memory at specific intervals of rest between tasks due to the ability of the brain to

translate benefits of a specific task towards another task.

A functional working memory is necessary for many daily tasks ranging from finding

keys, recalling names, memorizing phone numbers, and reciting addresses. Modern societies are

susceptible to a myriad of factors that disrupt individuals from using their working memory

optimally. Saadati, Esmaeili-Mahani, Esmaeilpour, Nazeri, Mazhari, and Sheibani (2015)

observed this when they induced sleep deprivation in female rats, but they also observed that

physical exercise helped to compensate for decreased cognitive function. Because modern

society is prone to these detrimental factors like sleep deprivation, research in to the correlation

between different exercise intervals and memory could further cement that exercise should be a

daily activity not only for the health benefits but also the mental benefits.

The purpose of the proposed research will be to identify optimal intervals in which an

individual will receive the most benefits in their working memory. Previous research identified

the relationship between hypoxia and working memory (Komiyama et al., 2015), exercise and

episodic memory (Ponce & Loprinzi, 2018), and exercise withdrawal in rats (Radahmadi et al.,
EXERCISE ON MEMORY OF HS STUDENTS 5

2015). This research will attempt to identify positive correlations between the independent

variables of working memory and intervals of exercise in high school students with the

dependent variable being performance of working memory. The hypothesis of this study is that

moderate to intense exercise will have a positive impact on a students’ working memory after a

short interval of one to two hours, particularly in a class that relies heavily on working memory;

in this case, a second language class. Should this experiment confirm the hypothesis, it can be

concluded that specific intervals between exercise and accessing working memory have a

positive effect and will allow further research between time variables in exercise and memory.

Should the research disprove the hypothesis, further research involving variables other than time

intervals like, hormone levels and oxygen saturation, could prove to be substantial.

Method

Participants

Data will be collected from 15 classes (three classes, five schools) in the New York City

Public HS system. Four schools will be randomly selected from a pool the mandates a PE class

and a SL class. The last will be randomly selected from a pool that only mandates a SL class to

serve as a control group. From the initial four schools, three classes will be selected, each with

intervals between the initial PE class and the following SL class of one, two, and three periods in

between. The last school will randomly select classes with SL classes in the beginning, middle,

and end of the school day. Average age for each class will range from 13 to 19 years.

Materials
EXERCISE ON MEMORY OF HS STUDENTS 6

This research will require the participation of 5 SL teachers, one from each school that

teach three different classes at different time intervals. Each will need to hand out daily

assignments of equal difficulty that utilize working memory, in this case, language translation

tasks. Grades will then need to be collected and averaged.

Procedure

The research will be a naturalistic observation of 15 classes from five schools, three

classes from each school. Four schools will be selected at random that require one period of

Physical Education (PE) and one period of Second Language (SL). The last school will be one

that does not require PE and will act as the control. Each class will be selected based on the time

interval between their initial PE class and a following SL class, ranging from one, two, and three

periods in between. The time frame of the study will be one week. The data sets that will be

collected will be the average grades of daily assignments in the SL classes, provided that each

school administration provides consent. The nature of this research does not require consent from

students being that they are at minimal risk, everyone’s performance will be measured by a class

average to provide anonymity and there will be no direct manipulation of the independent

variable. The independent variables will be the interval of time between PE and SL classes as

well as the presence of exercise. The dependent variable will be the average grades of each daily

assignment. The data will be gathered in analyzed in a line graph for each school with the time

interval as the ordinate and average grades as the abscissa.

Results

A 2(exercise: present or absent) x 3(time interval: 1,2, or 3 periods) between-subjects was

performed observing the performance of students in the context of working memory (ability and

accuracy of linguistic recall). Findings were gathered and analyzed with a one-way analysis of

variance (ANOVA) marking the differences between subjects that exercised and those that did

not in addition to the time intervals between the subjects that did exercise. Findings further

confirmed the positive correlation between exercise and cognition. However, data gathered on

time intervals between exercise and working memory revealed differences in the performance of

participants. Upon inspection, the grades of exercising students with greater periods of rest

showed marked improvement on working memory, further suggesting the significance of time

intervals between tasks. The results of the control group did not exhibit any significant

differences in working memory based on time intervals.

Discussion

The current study attempts to reiterate the positive effect that exercise has cognitive

function as observed by Chang (2012), Etnier (2016), and McMorris (2011). In addition, it aims

to establish an optimal period between two independent tasks in which one (exercise) positively

influences the other (working memory). Whereas, Chang (2012), Etnier (2016), and McMorris

(2011) built upon the idea that exercise and cognition are related, the present study seeks to

explore the optimization of said relationship. A difference can also be noted in the observation of

participants; where, Radahmadi (2015) and Saadati (2015) observed increased cognitive

performance within rat populations and Etnier (2016) and McMorris (2011) within human
EXERCISE ON MEMORY OF HS STUDENTS 8

populations through a controlled environment; in which subjects were subject to induced stress

and aware of the manipulation in variables. The current study takes a naturalistic approach,

thereby diminishing the chance of extraneous variables due to biases and misrepresentation.

The present study fails to identify the point of diminishing returns between exercise and

working memory. Further research in to the topic could yield results on when the benefit of

exercise no longer carries over to cognitive tasks or functions, particularly when the time

intervals are increased. It also fails to represent populations other than children in high school;

future research could be expanded to populations that include adults and the elderly to study the

differences between developing brains and mature brains. One further point that could be

explored is the task that is assigned in assessing working memory, perhaps other research could

explore the differences in linguistic recall and spatial recognition post exercise. The findings of

the present study would imply that spatial recognition would improve the most after 3 periods of

rest between exercise and recall, suggesting that a bout of exercise and rest would help an

individual recognize spatial cues for example, landmarks and street names.

The advent of the technological revolution in modern society offers alternative past times

to exercise in populations, particularly those of developed countries, in the form of videos,

games, and social media. Although the effects of these past times on cognition have yet to be

fully understood, the findings of the present study serve to reinforce the known benefits of

exercise on cognition and further the idea that exercise should be incorporated in to daily

activity. In addition, technology has evolved to easily serve functions that were once delegated to

the working memory of individuals, for example Global Positioning Systems or cellphones.
EXERCISE ON MEMORY OF HS STUDENTS 9

Where, in the past, recalling geographical locations and phone numbers relied on an individual’s

mental capacity; these tasks are now done automatically with computers. That is not to state that

society should revert the assignments of these tasks, instead, that society should work in unison

with technology rather than rely on it at the cost of neglecting or under utilizing the mind and

body.

In conclusion, there is a strong correlation between the benefits of exercise and mental

function in individuals. The degree to which these 2 factors influence each other have a positive

correlation but the degree of benefit varies with consideration to the amount of time between

physical and mental activity. Although people may understand there is a relationship between the

two, it is unlikely that all levels of exercise produce the same amount of benefit. By testing

variances in time, this study shows there is an optimal range between tasks that produce the most

benefit with the least diminishing returns.

References

Chang, Y. K., Labban, J. D., Gapin, J. I., & Etnier, J. L. (2012). The effects of acute exercise on

cognitive performance: a meta-analysis. Brain Research, 1453, 87-101.

Etnier, J., Wideman, L., Labban, J., Piepmeier, A., Pendleton, D., Dvorak, K., & Becofsky, K.

(2016). The effects of acute exercise on memory and brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 38(4), 331-340.

Kim, T., & Sung, Y. (2017). Regular exercise promotes memory function and enhances

hippocampal neuroplasticity in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis mice.

Neuroscience, 346, 173-181.

Komiyama, T., Sudo, M., Higaki, Y., Kiyonaga, A., Tanaka, H., & Ando, S.. (2015). Does

moderate hypoxia alter working memory and executive function during prolonged

exercise? Physiology & Behavior, 139, 290-296.

Lambourne, K., & Tomporowski, P. (2010). The effect of exercise-induced arousal on cognitive

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McMorris, T., & Hale, B. J. (2012). Differential effects of differing intensities of acute exercise

on speed and accuracy of cognition: a meta-analytical investigation. Brain and Cognition,

80(3), 338-351.

McMorris, T., Sproule, J., Turner, A., & Hale, B. J. (2011). Acute, intermediate intensity

exercise, and speed and accuracy in working memory tasks: a meta-analytical comparison

of effects. Physiology & Behavior, 102(3-4), 421-428.

Ponce, P., & Loprinzi, P. (2018). A bi-directional model of exercise and episodic memory

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Radahmadi, M., Alaei, H., Sharifi, M., & Hosseini, R. (2015). Effect of forced exercise and

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Saadati, H., Esmaeili-Mahani, S., Esmaeilpour, K., Nazeri, M., Mazhari, S., & Sheibani, V.

(2015). Exercise improves learning and memory impairments in sleep deprived female

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