Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Acute Exercise on Real-World Ecological Memory

Abstract

To evaluate the effects of acute moderate-intensity exercise on ecological memory, as assessed from a face-name memory task. A two-arm, parallel-group, randomized controlled intervention was employed. Participants (N = 40; Mage = 20.8 years) were randomized into a seated control task or a bout of acute moderate-intensity treadmill exercise (15-min). Thereafter, participants completed a 3-phase face-name memory task, involving a study phase and two test phases (immediate and delayed recall, with the delay occurring 15 min after the immediate recall). For the immediate memory recall, the mean (SD) scores for the exercise and control conditions, respectively, were 6.60 (2.5) and 6.20 (2.5). For the 15-min delayed assessment, the respective scores were 6.25 (2.6) and 5.75 (1.9). There was a significant main effect for time (F = 4.06, P = 0.05, $$ \eta^{2}_{{p}} $$ = 0.10). However, there were no main effects for group (F = 0.33, P = 0.56, $$ \eta^{2}_{{p}} $$ = 0.01) or time by group interactions (F = 0.12, P = 0.72, $$ \eta^{2}_{{p}} $$ = 0.003). Despite the exercise group having slightly higher immediate and delayed face-name memory scores, we did not observe robust evidence of acute exercise enhancing face-name memory performance.