The Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Divergent and Convergent Thinking and Its Influence by Mood

Brain Sciences

Masato Inamura¹  Chong Chen¹  Masako Hirotsu¹  Rikuto Yamashita¹  Kosuke Hagiwara¹  Toshio Matsubara¹  Kohei Aga¹  Yuko Fujii¹  Shin Nakagawa¹  Tomoe Seki¹  Akiyo Takao¹ 

[1] Division of Neuropsychiatry, Department of Neuroscience, Yamaguchi University Graduate School of Medicine, Ube, Yamaguchi 755-8505, Japan;

关键词: aerobic exercise;    creativity;    convergent thinking;    divergent thinking;    flexibility;    insight problem-solving;   

DOI  :  10.3390/brainsci11050546

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Abundant evidence shows that various forms of physical exercise, even conducted briefly, may improve cognitive functions. However, the effect of physical exercise on creative thinking remains under-investigated, and the role of mood in this effect remains unclear. In the present study, we set out to investigate the effect of an acute bout of aerobic exercise on divergent and convergent thinking and whether this effect depends on the post-exercise mood. Forty healthy young adults were randomly assigned to receive a 15-min exercise or control intervention, before and after which they conducted an alternate use test measuring divergent thinking and an insight problem-solving task measuring convergent thinking. It was found that exercise enhanced divergent thinking in that it increased flexibility and fluency. Importantly, these effects were not mediated by the post-exercise mood in terms of pleasure and vigor. In contrast, the effect on convergent thinking depended on subjects’ mood after exercise: subjects reporting high vigor tended to solve more insight problems that were unsolved previously, while those reporting low vigor became less capable of solving previously unsolved problems. These findings suggest that aerobic exercise may affect both divergent and convergent thinking, with the former being mood-independent and the latter mood-dependent. If these findings can be replicated with more rigorous studies, engaging in a bout of mood, particularly vigor-enhancing aerobic exercise, may be considered a useful strategy for gaining insights into previously unsolved problems.

【 授权许可】

Unknown