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The Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Divergent and Convergent Thinking and Its Influence by Mood

Abundant evidence shows that various forms of physical exercise, even conducted briefly, may improve cognitive functions. However, the effect of physical exercise on creative thinking remains under-investigated, and the role of mood in this effect remains unclear. In the present study, we set out to...

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Autores principales: Aga, Kohei, Inamura, Masato, Chen, Chong, Hagiwara, Kosuke, Yamashita, Rikuto, Hirotsu, Masako, Seki, Tomoe, Takao, Akiyo, Fujii, Yuko, Matsubara, Toshio, Nakagawa, Shin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8145661/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33925304
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11050546
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author Aga, Kohei
Inamura, Masato
Chen, Chong
Hagiwara, Kosuke
Yamashita, Rikuto
Hirotsu, Masako
Seki, Tomoe
Takao, Akiyo
Fujii, Yuko
Matsubara, Toshio
Nakagawa, Shin
author_facet Aga, Kohei
Inamura, Masato
Chen, Chong
Hagiwara, Kosuke
Yamashita, Rikuto
Hirotsu, Masako
Seki, Tomoe
Takao, Akiyo
Fujii, Yuko
Matsubara, Toshio
Nakagawa, Shin
author_sort Aga, Kohei
collection PubMed
description Abundant evidence shows that various forms of physical exercise, even conducted briefly, may improve cognitive functions. However, the effect of physical exercise on creative thinking remains under-investigated, and the role of mood in this effect remains unclear. In the present study, we set out to investigate the effect of an acute bout of aerobic exercise on divergent and convergent thinking and whether this effect depends on the post-exercise mood. Forty healthy young adults were randomly assigned to receive a 15-min exercise or control intervention, before and after which they conducted an alternate use test measuring divergent thinking and an insight problem-solving task measuring convergent thinking. It was found that exercise enhanced divergent thinking in that it increased flexibility and fluency. Importantly, these effects were not mediated by the post-exercise mood in terms of pleasure and vigor. In contrast, the effect on convergent thinking depended on subjects’ mood after exercise: subjects reporting high vigor tended to solve more insight problems that were unsolved previously, while those reporting low vigor became less capable of solving previously unsolved problems. These findings suggest that aerobic exercise may affect both divergent and convergent thinking, with the former being mood-independent and the latter mood-dependent. If these findings can be replicated with more rigorous studies, engaging in a bout of mood, particularly vigor-enhancing aerobic exercise, may be considered a useful strategy for gaining insights into previously unsolved problems.
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spelling pubmed-81456612021-05-26 The Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Divergent and Convergent Thinking and Its Influence by Mood Aga, Kohei Inamura, Masato Chen, Chong Hagiwara, Kosuke Yamashita, Rikuto Hirotsu, Masako Seki, Tomoe Takao, Akiyo Fujii, Yuko Matsubara, Toshio Nakagawa, Shin Brain Sci Article Abundant evidence shows that various forms of physical exercise, even conducted briefly, may improve cognitive functions. However, the effect of physical exercise on creative thinking remains under-investigated, and the role of mood in this effect remains unclear. In the present study, we set out to investigate the effect of an acute bout of aerobic exercise on divergent and convergent thinking and whether this effect depends on the post-exercise mood. Forty healthy young adults were randomly assigned to receive a 15-min exercise or control intervention, before and after which they conducted an alternate use test measuring divergent thinking and an insight problem-solving task measuring convergent thinking. It was found that exercise enhanced divergent thinking in that it increased flexibility and fluency. Importantly, these effects were not mediated by the post-exercise mood in terms of pleasure and vigor. In contrast, the effect on convergent thinking depended on subjects’ mood after exercise: subjects reporting high vigor tended to solve more insight problems that were unsolved previously, while those reporting low vigor became less capable of solving previously unsolved problems. These findings suggest that aerobic exercise may affect both divergent and convergent thinking, with the former being mood-independent and the latter mood-dependent. If these findings can be replicated with more rigorous studies, engaging in a bout of mood, particularly vigor-enhancing aerobic exercise, may be considered a useful strategy for gaining insights into previously unsolved problems. MDPI 2021-04-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8145661/ /pubmed/33925304 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11050546 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Aga, Kohei
Inamura, Masato
Chen, Chong
Hagiwara, Kosuke
Yamashita, Rikuto
Hirotsu, Masako
Seki, Tomoe
Takao, Akiyo
Fujii, Yuko
Matsubara, Toshio
Nakagawa, Shin
The Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Divergent and Convergent Thinking and Its Influence by Mood
title The Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Divergent and Convergent Thinking and Its Influence by Mood
title_full The Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Divergent and Convergent Thinking and Its Influence by Mood
title_fullStr The Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Divergent and Convergent Thinking and Its Influence by Mood
title_full_unstemmed The Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Divergent and Convergent Thinking and Its Influence by Mood
title_short The Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Divergent and Convergent Thinking and Its Influence by Mood
title_sort effect of acute aerobic exercise on divergent and convergent thinking and its influence by mood
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8145661/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33925304
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11050546
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