Effects of exercise on choice reaction latency and movement speed

Performance and learning of an 8-choice RT-MT task was investigated as a function of two levels of interpolated arm exercise. Following a pretest under control nonexercise conditions, 90 subjects were given 60 trials under one of three experimental conditions (low intensity, high intensity, and vowel-cancelling). This was followed on a second day by a further 18 trials under control conditions. Predictions from the theory of exercise-induced activation received only limited support by the indication that the highly intense condition impaired RT. Exercise of low intensity did not facilitate RT. For MT no differential effects were found. Similarly, learning RT and MT was unaffected by exercise. These findings indicate that the theory of exercise-induced activation needs to be developed further to account for response situations that have high demand for attention.