Investigating the Nature of Cognitive Benefits Associated with Fitness and Sporting Engagement

There are many studies showing an association between fitness and/or sporting skill and better cognitive performance than is seen for unfit/unskilled individuals. One mechanism proposed for these effects is increased neural plasticity, meaning better cognitive performance could be the result of a more trainable brain. Here, we investigated performance on a visual search task to see if there was a training benefit associated with fitness or sporting skill and to supplement previous findings for a motor learning task which showed better initial performance in sporting individuals but no learning-related differences. No significant benefit was associated with fitness or sporting skill either for task performance or task learning. The only significant difference was likely indicative of reduced non-specific learning in two of the three sport/exercise groups, possible due to prior improvement in these skills as a result of fitness or sporting skill. The findings suggest a need for specificity in selecting use of training when aiming to produce cognitive benefits. This would also benefit from better assessment of sport-specific and sport/fitness general effects on cognitive performance.