Physical Activity's Impact on Adolescents' Long-Term Memory: Semantic & Episodic Memory St, Study notes of Psychology

Download Physical Activity's Impact on Adolescents' Long-Term Memory: Semantic & Episodic Memory St and more Study notes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! affects on long-term memory 1 The Effects of Physical Activity on Adolescents Long- Term Memory Fredrik Bäck Department of Behavioural, Social and Legal Sciences Psychology, Örebro University Abstract There is a body of research on the effect of physical activity on cognition in the old adult population. Less research are conducted on adolescents. The aim for this study is to find out if adolescents long-term memory is affected by physical activity. 144 pupils were asked to rate their physical activity each week. Thereafter their long- term memory was tested through tests on episodic- and semantic memory. The results showed that those who are physically active more than 4 hours had a better score on part of the semantic test but no effect was found in the episodic test. This result indicates that physical activity not only affects working memory, as was shown by previous research but also has an effect in parts of the semantic long-term memory. Keywords: Physical activity, long-term memory, semantic memory, episodic memory, adolescents Supervisor: Reza Kormi- Nouri Psychology C, HT 2009 affects on long-term memory 2 Effekterna av fysisk aktivitet på ungdomars långtidsminne Sammanfattning Forskningen har koncentrerat sig på den äldre populationen när det kommer till fysisk aktivitet och dess påverkan på kognition. Mindre forskning har utförts på barn och ungdomar. Målet med denna studie är att undersöka om ungdomars långtidsminne påverkas av fysisk aktivitet. 144 elever ingick i studien och de fick uppge hur många minuter per vecka de är fysiskt aktiva. Därefter testades deras långtidsminne genom test på det semantiska och episodiska minnet. Resultatet visade på att de elever som var fysiskt aktiva mer än fyra timmar i veckan svarade bättre på delar av det semantiska testet men ingen skillnad fanns i det episodiska. Denna studie visar på att det inte bara finns en effekt av fysisk aktivitet på arbetsminnet hos unga som tidigare forskning visar utan nu även på delar av det semantiska långtidsminnet. Nyckelord: Fysisk aktivitet, långtidsminne, episodiskt minne, semantiskt minne, ungdomar. Fredrik Bäck Handledare: Reza Kormi-Nouri Psykologi C HT 2009 Örebro Universitet affects on long-term memory 5 & Tomporowski, 2008). Another research also showed improvement of long- term memory directly after acute bouts of exercise (Winter et al., 2006). However, in contrast to Coles & Tomporowskis (2008) study, Winter et al. (2006) showed that short-term memory was also influenced positively and directly after exercise. Memory and learning are enhanced by physical activity not only in humans but also in animals. Studies conducted on rats discovered that physical activity had a positive effect on learning and memory after only one week (Vaynman, Ying & Gomez- Pinilla, 2004). These effects were better spatial learning and better retention. Other research on mice has also shown positive effects on learning (Van Praag, Christie, Sejnowski & Gage 1999). Less research has been done in adolescents and children. Castelli, Buck, Hillman, Themanson & Pontifax (2009) suggests that physical activity has positive effects on children’s development and neural organization, and it has beneficial effects on both promotion of health and prevention of illness. It was found that physical activity increases children’s ability in the central executive just as it does on adults (Coles & Tomporowski, 2008). It was also shown that there were some relationships between physical activity and children’s grade in school. Physical activity has also positive effects on the visuospatial memory (Stroth, Hille, Spitzer & Reinhardt 2009) which is an assistant system to the central executive in the working memory (Baddeley, 1986). On the other hand, physical activity showed no effects on verbal component of working memory (Stroth et al., 2009). There is also a debate whether children and adolescents cognition is improved by physical activity globally or if it affects specific parts of cognition. Castelli et al (2009) suggest that, opposite to findings in adult population, physical activity improves cognition on a general level rather than selective parts. Stroth et al (2009) in contrast to Castelli et al (2009) mean that physical activity has a specific rather than a global effect on cognition. affects on long-term memory 6 Taken together, previous research has shown that working memory and its components (central executive, visuospatial memory) are enhanced by physical activity not only in adults (Colcombe & Kramer, 2003) but also in younger population (Stroth et al, 2009; Coles & Tomporowski 2008). Episodic memory has been found to improve in old adults if they are more physically active (Ruscheweyh et al., 2009) and long term memory retention is found to improve also in animals (Vaynman, Ying & Gomez- Pinilla, 2004; Van Praag et al. 1999). One question that is remained to be answered is if children’s long- term memory is influenced by physical activity. In this study I would ask to what extend adolescents are physically active and if this affects their long- term memory as it does in old adults. I would test adolescent’s semantic and episodic memory and to find out about any possible relationship between their memory performance and their weekly physical activity. The effect from physical activity on adult cognition seems to be more pronounced for women than for men (Colcombe & Kramer, 2003). I am going to find out if the same phenomenon exists among adolescents. Furthermore, there seems to be a debate whether effects of physical activity on cognition are global (Castelli et al., 2009) or if it is specific (Stroth et al., 2009). By using different types of memory tests, this can be also addressed in the present study. If physical activity has an effect on long- term memory this can help to motivate to let children and adolescents have more physical education hours in school. The hours in school with physical activity has declined in USA over the past decade (Allegrante, 2004). In Sweden actions have already occurred to bring in more physical activity in school. In the curriculum Lpo 94 (2006) it was added 2005 that the school needed to offer opportunities for physical activity throughout the school day. affects on long-term memory 7 Method Participants The data was collected from two high schools in a mid-Swedish community. One of the schools consists from pupils that in general came from a residence with mostly apartments. The other school is located in a neighbourhood with mostly villas and houses (Örebro town home web page, 2009). The pupils in eight or ninth grades participated the study voluntarily. There were totally ten classes, eight classes (N= 104) from the first school and two classes (N= 40) from the other. Total number of pupils that participated in the study was 144. Boys (N=74) and girls (N=70) were almost equally distributed as was the distribution between eight (N=69) and ninth (N=75) graders. Pupils born in Sweden (N=100) were more than those born in another country (N=44) and pupils that speak Swedish in their homes (N=89) were more than they who spoke another (N=53). The age range was between 12 to 16 and the mean age was M=14,47. A pilot study was used from pupils from a third school (N= 5) to refine the data collection and to control for possible ceiling effects. Measures Physical activity. The purpose of this study was to study long- term memory of adolescents who are more physically active compared to those less physically active. To find this out I asked by using a survey how often they have been physically active in general per week during the last six months. I also asked how long these activity sessions generally took place. Thereafter, I multiplied those two variables to find out how many minutes per week they were physically active. I then divided at the mean of how many minutes per week they are physically active in two groups. The first group (N=74) are those who are physically active in a low level (less than 4 hours a week).The second group (N=60) are those who are affects on long-term memory 10 Results The aim for this study was to find out if adolescents long- term memory is affected by physical activity. I have divided the students (boys and girls) who are physically active into group 1 (low level group, less than four hours per week) and group 2 (high level group, more than four hours per week). It was explored whether there is any group and gender difference with respect to episodic and semantic memory tests. Table 1. Table 1 shows the means and (standard deviation) for the groups in different long- term memory tests. Group 1 Group 2 (N=74) (N=60) Semantic B 8,61 (2,68) 10,23 (2,83) S 10,26 (2,85) 12,27 (3,34) Animal 13,87 (3,42) 14,29 (3,52) Fruits 8,79 (2,80) 8,68 (2,40) Episodic Name- 4,31 (2,21) 4,20 (1,94) recall Face- 8,81 (2,56) 8,88 (2,88) Recognition Note. Group 1 is physically active less than 4 hours a week. Group 2 is physically active 4 hours or more a week. Semantic memory Table 2. Table 2 shows the main and interaction effects of the letter fluency test. Df MSe F P Group (1,122) 215,17 16,01 <.001 Gender (1,122) 36,17 2,69 >.05 Task (1,122) 215,93 61,91 <.001 Group x Task (1,122) 2,47 0,71 >.05 Group x Gender (1,122) 0,04 0,00 >.05 Group x Gender x Task (1,122) 11,38 3,26 >.05 affects on long-term memory 11 A 2(Group:1/2) x2(Gender: Boy/Girl) x2(Task:B/S) ANOVA was conducted and summary ANOVA for the letter fluency test is shown in Table 2. Two main effects were shown to be significant, the groups and the letter fluency tasks. Group 2 (mean=11,28) scored better than group 1 (mean=9,42) and scores on test S (mean=11,28) were better than test B (mean=9,41). No interactions effects were found. Table 3. Table 3 shows the main and interaction effects in the category fluency test. Df MSe F P Group (1,128) 2,84 0,22 >.05 Gender (1,128) 136,13 10,57 =.001 Task (1,128) 1843,87 407,58 <.001 Group x Task (1,128) 2,03 0,45 >.05 Group x Gender (1,128) 1,90 0,15 >.05 Group x Gender x Task (1,128) 0,00 0,00 >.05 A 2(Group:1/2) x2(Gender: Boy/Girl) x2(Task: Animal/Fruit) ANOVA was conducted and summary ANOVA for this test is shown in Table 3. Two main effects were to be significant: genders and category fluency tasks. Girls (mean=12,10) scored better on this test than boys (mean=10,65) and scores on animals (mean=14,04) were better than the score on fruits (mean=8,70). No significant interaction effects were found. Episodic memory Table 4. Df MSe F P Group (1,130) 2,57 0,00 >.05 Gender (1,130) 6,64 0,90 >.05 Task (1,130) 1378,32 318,26 <.001 Group x Task (1,130) 0,20 0,05 >.05 Group x Gender (1,130) 4,40 0,60 >.05 Group x Gender x Task (1,130) 0,27 0,06 >.05 affects on long-term memory 12 A 2(Group:1/2) x2(Gender: Boy/Girl) x2(Task: Name recall/Face recognition) ANOVA was conducted and summary ANOVA for this test is shown in Table 4. One main effect was shown to be significant: the tasks. Scores on the recognition test (mean=8,83) were higher than the name recall test (4,26). No significant interaction effect was found. Discussion The main goal of this study was to investigate if physical activity affects long- term memory in adolescents. It was also explored whether the effect was more pronounced for girls than for boys as it was in old adults. Furthermore, another aim was to investigate if physical activity has a global or specific effect on cognition. The results in this study indicated that there was a physical activity effect in part of long-term memory. This shows that high grade of physical activity affects specific and not global parts of long- term memory. The effects found in adolescents showed no difference between girls and boys. A main effect on genders was found but no interaction effect in relation to physical activity was found. In accordance with previous research about the relation between physical activity and short-term memory (see Colcombe & Kramer, 2003; Stroth et al. 2009; Coles & Tomporowski 2008) the results from this study showed that high grade of physical activity can also improve parts of long-term memory (i.e., semantic memory). Improvements in specific parts of the semantic memory provide support for Stroth et al (2009) view that physical activity affects specific rather than global parts of cognition. 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