Aerobic fitness and the attentional blink in preadolescent children

Given the growing concern that children in today's industrialized and technologically advanced society are becoming more sedentary and less fit, a greater understanding of the extent to which aerobic fitness relates to brain health and cognition during development is of increasing importance. Given that temporal dynamics has not been examined to link the relation of aerobic fitness with cognition in preadolescent children, this study sought to employ neuroelectric and behavioral measures under the attentional blink task to examine this relationship. Using a cross-sectional design, response accuracy and event-related brain potentials were assessed for preadolescent children with different levels of aerobic fitness. Results indicated that higher-fit children exhibited greater response accuracy and enhanced attentional resources distribution compared to lower-fit children. These findings indicate that aerobic fitness may benefit cognitive health in particular with temporal dynamics during preadolescent maturation.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Kinesiology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Wu, Chien Ting

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hillman, Charles H.
• Cohen, Neal J.
• McAuley, Edward
• Petruzzello, Steven J.

• Event-related Potentials
• Temporal attention
• Aerobic Fitness
• Attentional-blink
• P3
• Children

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2012 Chien Ting Wu

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/34376

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/34376