Cognitive demands of physical activity

Attention and concentration not only play an important role in sport, but are also relevant for mental and physical health as well as for success in life and at school. Attention and concentration require cognitive processes that ensure that important stimuli can be recognized, unimportant stimuli suppressed, relevant information separated from irrelevant information and important information maintained. These higher-level cognitive control functions are referred to as executive functions and are made up of working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility. Meta-analyses show that physical activity can have a short-term and long-term positive influence on executive functions in young and older adults and children. How physical activity can contribute to the improvement of executive functions and which form of activity is best suited for this is part of the current scientific discourse. One assumption here relates to the cognitive demands resulting from the requirements of the physical activity task and the individual prerequisites (e.g. previous experience, age). It is assumed that physical activities that require cognitive control resources such as planning and attention during execution can have a direct effect on the development of executive functions.

The level of cognitive demand on the individual can be assessed either by changes in behavior (e.g. performance under dual activity conditions) or by changes in physiological parameters (e.g. pupil width).

The current project deals with the cognitive load during physical activities (strength exercises, cycling) and uses indirect (dual-task paradigm) and direct (pupillometry) examination approaches.