Key result
Cognitive fatigue impairs endurance performance and perceptual-cognitive skills, but not anaerobic performance, suggesting that physical tasks requiring central executive functioning are most affected.
Why the study?
Despite increasing interest in the effects of cognitive fatigue on physical performance, an understanding focused on different physical tasks requiring different cognitive loads was needed to explain when subsequent performance declines.
Physical tasks involving central executive functioning may be significantly more impaired by cognitive fatigue compared to tasks that utilize an all-out strategy.
Supports considering cognitive load in endurance training; hypothesis-generating for targeted countermeasures in central executive tasks.
Over the last decade, there has been increasing interest in the effects of cognitive fatigue on physical performance. This review aims to provide an understanding of these effects with an emphasis on different types of physical tasks requiring different cognitive loads. We specifically focus on understanding the similarity or difference between the cognitive and physical task to help formulate a hypothesis for when there is a decline in the subsequent physical task and when there is not. Taken together, the research shows that endurance performance and perceptual-cognitive skills seem to decline following the completion of a cognitive task, while anaerobic performance remains unaffected. Consistent with the limited-resource model of self-control, the completion of a cognitively demanding task may deplete or inhibit cognitive resources, resulting in impaired performance on a subsequent physical task that relies on similar resources. In other words, physical tasks involving central executive functioning may be significantly more impaired by cognitive fatigue compared to tasks that utilize an all-out strategy. It is recommended that future research continues examining the impact of cognitive fatigue on different types of physical tasks while controlling for other variables.
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Aitken et al. (2019) conducted a review in Cognitive fatigue. Cognitive fatigue vs. Control was evaluated. Cognitive fatigue impairs endurance performance and perceptual-cognitive skills, but not anaerobic performance, suggesting that physical tasks requiring central executive functioning are most affected.
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