by Jade Turner, Peyton Dunow, Samara Wong, Julie Boynton
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Emily Stanley
Previous research has found that moderate levels of exercise are related to improved cognitive functioning, along with increased P3 (stimulus evaluation) and decreased N2 (response monitoring), which are components of error processing. Previous studies have also shown an enhanced effect of exercise on executive functioning. The present study aims to determine whether athletes will have a smaller error-related negativity (ERN), another aspect of error processing, than non-athletes. This study will include giving the Flanker task while connected to an electroencephalogram (EEG), having participants bike for fifteen minutes, completing the Flanker task again, and measuring positive and negative affect, mental toughness, and intrinsic motivation as possible mediators. We hypothesize that participants who fit in the athletic category and all participants’ second trial will make fewer mistakes overall on the Flanker task and have a smaller ERN. We will also explore other factors to look for mediation in the relationship.
Thank you for sharing your results. I was sorry to hear about your loss of data and limited participants that narrowed the findings.
Thank you for your comment! Hiccups tend to happen in research! Adaptability is key!
This is a cool study design! Do you think that you could have seen a change in flanker task performance simply because of repeat testing?
Thank you for your comment! We were concerned about the possibility of the results of the flanker task being confounded due to practice effects; however, we did not find a significant difference in number of errors between Time 1 and Time 2 anyway!
Pandemics can really get in the way of research, can’t they! That said, I’m so glad you were still able to share the research you worked on this year with all of us. I’m glad I now know how you were using the exercise bike.
Thank you for your comment, Dr. Erchull! Hopefully, our use of the of the bike was a constructive one! Thanks for sharing the bike with us! I am glad the department invested in the bike. Perhaps, future students will find some interesting short-term effects of exercise in psychology.
I know how difficult it was for you to get the EEG data cleaned before the campus shutdown. Good job getting it done!
Thanks for commenting, Dr. McBride, and thanks for accommodating !
I think the idea of using the exercise bike and doing the flanker task was great! Sorry that the pandemic got in the way of the research but I enjoyed your presentation! I know you all worked super hard to clean and organize that data before everything shut down.
Thank you for comment, Dr. Liss! Cleaning up the data was a race against time! Research can be challenging, but I think it’s rewarding in itself.