EFFECTS OF ACUTE PHYSICAL EXERCISE AND ACUTE MENTAL EXERCISE ON SIMPLE VISUAL REACTION TIME

Year 2019, Volume: 6 Issue: 2, 43 - 48, 01.06.2019

Berkay Kef Alperen Elibol , Ece Şenyiğit , Hasan Orkun İpsalalı Umutcan Gölbaşı Fatih Erkan Atay , Arda Ulaş Mutlu , Ekin Altınbaş Hüseyin Karaman Ceylin Eylül Karakaş Ezgi Güneş Aybüke Nazlı Gültekin Enes Taşçı Salim Turan Berk Toy Oktay Kaya Melike Şahiner , Güldal İnan Gültekin

Abstract

Aims: The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of acute physical exercise and acute mental exercise on visual reaction
time in healthy medical students. Methods: We used a simple reaction time task software developed by the researchers to measure the visual reaction times of the subjects. Reaction times of subjects as well as pulse rates were measured on three different occasions: basal (resting), post acute mental exercise and post acute physical exercise. The acute physical exercise was constructed
to last for 5 minutes in a way that would double the basal pulse rate of the participant. The acute mental exercise was induced by
five minutes of ADD-3 arithmetics. All volunteered physically healthy medical students from four different medical schools in
Turkey without red-green color deficiencies were included in the study. Results: A total of 232 (136 male, 96 female) individuals
with a mean age of 20.79 ± 1.42 were included in the study. Differences between basal reaction time and post-physical exercise
reaction time; the basal reaction time and post-mental exercise reaction time were found to be statistically significant. Basal
reaction time of participants was found to be the key element deriving both post-mental and physical exercise reaction times.
Also, one unit increase in the number of ADD-3 problems solved was associated with 0.21 units decrease in post-mental exercise
reaction time. Conclusion: Both acute mental exercise and acute physical exercise can shorten visual reaction time. Our results
also indicate that there might be a relationship between arithmetic capability (ADD-3 arithmetics performance) and visual reaction time. Keywords: Exercise, pulse, reaction time, software

Keywords

Exercise, pulse, reaction time

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