The Influence of Various Distraction Stimuli on Affective Responses to Cycle Ergometry

Abstract

Acute bouts of exercise have been associated with significant affective changes. Exercise supplemented with distraction stimuli may divert attention from feelings of fatigue and discomfort that are common during bouts of exercise to more pleasant feelings. However, many studies focus on auditory stimuli rather than visual stimuli. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare individuals' affective responses to exercise with visual, auditory and no distraction. METHODS: 29 individuals (20.5±1 .4 years) volunteered for this investigation. This study included three 30 min cycle ergometry exercise conditions, a control condition with no stimuli (NS) and 2 test conditions; one supplemented with a video (VS) and a second involving music (MS). Both stimuli were self-selected and administered in a random order. The Activation Deactivation Adjective Check List (ADACL), the Feeling Scale (FS), and the Felt-Arousal Scale (FAS) were given to the participants prior to, immediately following, 10 min post and 60 min post an acute bout of cycle ergometry. The ADACL assesses affect in the following dimensions: energetic arousal (EA; energy to tiredness) and tense arousal (TA; calm to tension). The FS assesses affective valences ranging from “very good” to “very bad”. The FAS assesses activation ranging from “low arousal” to “high arousal”. It was hypothesized that immediately after the acute bouts of exercise; positive affective responses will be highest after the video condition, followed by the music condition and lastly, the control condition. RESULTS: The data revealed a significant time effect for the FS, FAS, TA and EA. FS was significantly higher for the music and video groups compared to the no stim group (VS: 2.5±0.3;MS: 2.5±0.3;NS: 1.9±0.3; p<.01) and TA was significantly lower for the video group in comparison to the other 2 conditions (VS: 20.4±0.7; MS: 21.9±0.7; NS: 21.4±0.7; p<.03). There were no time by condition interactions for any of the data. CONCLUSION: These data seem to indicate that when given a distraction, an exerciser may experience greater feelings of pleasure when exercising with some type of distraction. This effect may be accentuated when considering feelings of tension in particular when video distraction is applied. The video distraction condition appears to be superior to the music condition due to its effect on both pleasurable feelings and tension during exercise. Application of these findings may have a positive influence on both adherence and compliance.