Patterns of attentional and recognition-memory processing of emotional information among Chinese middle school...

Physical exercise is closely associated with adolescent mental health, yet emotional information processing among adolescents with different exercise volumes remains insufficiently understood. This study examined attentional and recognition-memory processing of positive and negative emotional information among middle school students with different exercise volumes.

Using convenience sampling, 300 copies of a modified 3-month-recall version of the Physical Activity Rating Scale-3 (PARS-3) were distributed at a middle school, yielding 291 valid questionnaires. In a cross-sectional extreme-group design, 60 students (30 per group) were recruited from the extreme ends of the high- and low-exercise-volume categories to complete the behavioral experiment. Task 1 used a dot-probe task to examine reaction time, probe congruency, and vigilance and disengagement/avoidance indices in response to positive and negative emotional pictures. Task 2 used a learning-recognition task to examine recognition accuracy, recognition sensitivity (d'), and response criterion (c) for positive and negative faces.

In the dot-probe task, the Group × Valence interaction was significant, and the low-exercise-volume group responded faster to negative than to positive pictures. The Group × Valence interaction for the attentional disengagement/avoidance index was also significant, with the low-exercise-volume group showing a larger positive-picture disengagement/avoidance index, a pattern consistent with greater difficulty disengaging attention from positive pictures. In the learning-recognition task, Group × Valence interactions were significant for both d' and recognition accuracy, whereas the corresponding interaction for c was not significant. The low-exercise-volume group showed lower d' for positive than for negative faces, and its d' for positive faces was lower than that of the high-exercise-volume group; the accuracy analysis showed a corresponding within-group valence difference.

Middle school students with different exercise volumes showed different valence-related patterns of emotional information processing, primarily in overall reaction time, the derived disengagement/avoidance index, and recognition sensitivity. Overall, exercise volume was associated with emotional information processing in adolescents. Because the behavioral sample was recruited from the extreme ends of the screening distribution, the observed group differences and effect sizes characterize selected extreme-group contrasts; they are not population-level estimates for typical high- versus low-exercise-volume adolescents. Longitudinal and experimental studies are needed to examine causal relationships.