Aerobic capacity and cognitive control in elementary school-age children

Abstract

Purpose: The current study examined the relationship between children's performance on the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run subtest of the FitnessGram® and aspects of cognitive control that are believed to support academic success.

Methods: Hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted on a sample of second- and third-grade children (n = 397) who completed modified versions of a flanker task and spatial n-back task to assess inhibitory control and working memory, respectively.

Results: Greater aerobic fitness was significantly related to shorter reaction time and superior accuracy during the flanker task, suggesting better inhibitory control and the facilitation of attention in higher-fit children. A similar result was observed for the n-back task such that higher-fit children exhibited more accurate target detection and discrimination performance when working memory demands were increased.

Conclusions: These findings support the positive association between aerobic fitness and multiple aspects of cognitive control in a large sample of children, using a widely implemented and reliable field estimate of aerobic capacity. Importantly, the current results suggest that this relationship is consistent across methods used to assess fitness, which may have important implications for extending this research to more representative samples of children in a variety of experimental contexts.

Figures

Figure 1

Children’s behavioral performance is displayed for both cognitive control tasks. a) Incongruent trials resulted in longer RT across both conditions, yet overall flanker RT was delayed in the incompatible condition. b) Congruent trials resulted in higher accuracy across both conditions compared to incongruent trials, however, congruent trial accuracy decreased during the incompatible condition whereas incongruent accuracy significantly increased. c) Overall RT for the n-back task was delayed across each subsequent condition, and target trials resulted in shorter RT compared to non-target trials in the 0- and 1-back conditions. d) Overall accuracy decreased across n-back conditions, with target trials having lower accuracy compared to non-target trials in each condition. e) False alarm rate was significantly higher in the 2-back condition, yet no difference was observed between the 0- and 1-back. f) Mirroring the effect of n-back accuracy, d’ scores progressively decreased across the subsequent conditions.

Figure 2

Partial regression plots depicting the relationship between fitness and flanker task performance for: a) compatible RT, b) incompatible RT, c) compatible accuracy, and d) incompatible accuracy, after controlling for grade, sex, household income, and BMI. Partial correlations (pr) are provided. *p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01

Figure 3

Partial regression plots depicting the relationship between fitness and the spatial n-back task for: a) 0-back target RT, b) 1-back false alarm rate, c) 1-back accuracy, d) 2-back accuracy, and e) d’ scores in the 1- and 2-back conditions, after controlling for grade, sex, household income, and BMI. Partial correlations (pr) are provided. *p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01