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Neuroscience Letters 441 (2008) 219–223
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Neuroscience Letters
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/neulet
Acute coordinative exercise improves attentional performance in adolescents
Henning Buddea,∗, Claudia Voelcker-Rehageb, Sascha Pietraßyk-Kendziorraa,
Pedro Ribeiroc,G¨
unter Tidowa
aDepartment of Movement and Training Science, Institute of Sport Science, Humboldt University Berlin, Konrad-Wolf-Str. 45, 13055 Berlin, Germany
bJacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development, Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
cBioscience Department, School of Physical Education, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (EEFD/UFRJ), Brazil
article info
Article history:
Received 3 April 2008
Received in revised form 21 May 2008
Accepted 10 June 2008
Keywords:
d2-Test
Bimanual coordination
Exercise
Cognition
Attention
Concentration
abstract
Teachers complain about growing concentration deficits and reduced attention in adolescents. Exercise
has been shown to positively affect cognitive performance. Due to the neuronal connection between the
cerebellum and the frontal cortex, we hypothesized that cognitive performance might be influenced by
bilateral coordinative exercise (CE) and that its effect on cognition might be already visible after short
bouts of exercise. One hundred and fifteen healthy adolescents aged 13–16 years of an elite performance
school were randomly assigned to an experimental and a control group and tested using the d2-test, a test
of attention and concentration. Both groups performed the d2-test after a regular school lesson (pre-test),
after 10min of coordinative exercise and of a normal sport lesson (NSL, control group), respectively (post-
test). Exercise was controlled for heart rate (HR). CE and NSL enhanced the d2-test performance from pre-
to post-test significantly. ANOVA revealed a significant group (CE, NSL) by performance interaction in the
d2-test indicating a higher improvement of CE as compared to NSL. HR was not significantly different
between the groups. CE was more effective in completing the concentration and attention task. With the
HR being the same in both groups we assume that the coordinative character of the exercise might be
responsible for the significant differences. CE might lead to a pre-activation of parts of the brain which
are also responsible for mediating functions like attention. Thus, our results support the request for more
acute CE in schools, even in elite performance schools.
© 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Many teachers in the western countries complain about growing
concentration deficits, increased unrest and reduced attention in
children. Due to this development, new education models areasked
for in which the ability to concentrate and therewith the cogni-
tive competence will be promoted. In this context, the relation of
physical activity and fitness to academic performance is of spe-
cial interest because physical education programs in schools are
required to contributeto the primary mission of schools, i.e. the pro-
motion of academic performance [8]. Compelling support for the
view that acute aerobic exercise can facilitate cognitive functioning
is provided by empirical data on adults reviewed by Tomporowski
[24]. He stated that submaximal aerobic exercise performed for
periods up to 60 min facilitates specific aspects of information pro-
cessing. Accordingly,findings by Hillman and co-workers [12] imply
that acute bouts of cardiovascular exercise may enhance the allo-
cation of attentional and memory resources, and hence, benefit
executive control function in undergraduates. Unfortunately, very
∗Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 30 2093 4652; fax: +49 30 2093 4646.
E-mail address: henning.budde@rz.hu-berlin.de (H. Budde).
little is known about the impact of acute physical activity on chil-
dren and youth or young student’s class attention and academic
performance [24] and the underlying mechanisms.
Current studies have focused on the relation between physical
activity and the academic performance of school-age children. A
meta-analysis with children [22] has demonstrated that physical
activity participation is associated with better cognitive perfor-
mance. The results of this review, however, indicate that the
relationship between physical activity and cognition in children
differs with regard to the age – 11–13-year-old students showed
the largest effect – and type of cognitive assessment with percep-
tual skill tests showing the largest effect. They found no differences,
however, among types of physical activity and between chronic and
acute interventions. Hillman and co-workers [11] showed that the
aerobic fitness level has a positive relation to academic achieve-
ment. Accordingly,Coe and co-workers [4] reported that pupils who
engaged in vigorous physical activity outside school 3 or more days
per week for 20 or more minutes per occasion performed better in
school than those that did physical exercise at a moderate level. A
study with adolescents tested the relationship between motorcoor-
dinative abilities and cognition and showed positive and significant
0304-3940/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2008.06.024
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220 H. Budde et al. / Neuroscience Letters 441 (2008) 219–223
associations between the latent motor and the cognitive variables.
With both sexes, the motor dimensions with the strongest asso-
ciations with the cognitive abilities are those of coordination and
the speed of movement [17]. A first intervention study with grade
5 students showed that a 6-week bimanual coordination program
improved the reading comprehension skills compared to controls
[25].
Despite this relationship between coordinativeabilities and cog-
nition, until now, to the best of our knowledge, no study has
assessed the influence of an acute bout of coordinative exercise (CE)
on cognition. This might be, however, of high importance within
the development of new education models to prevent concentra-
tion lapse. Coordinative exercise is known to involve an activation
of the cerebellum which besides motor functions [9] influences a
variety of neurobehavioral systems including attention [5],work-
ing memory [13], and verbal learning and memory [1]. In addition,
experimental and clinical evidence points to the importance of the
frontal lobes, especially the prefrontal areas, in the mediation of
cognitive functions like executive control [15] on the one hand
and motor coordination [10] on the other. Due to the neuronal
structures responsible for coordination as well as cognition, we
hypothesized that coordinative exercise would lead to a general
pre-activation of cognitive-related neuronal networks and would
be more effective in improving the speed and accuracy of a con-
centration and attention task in a sample of adolescents compared
to control. Demonstrating that short bouts of coordinative exer-
cise have salutary effects on information processing and cognition
should have direct application to those involved in promoting edu-
cational performance.
One hundred and fifteen healthy adolescents aged 13–16 years
of an elite performance school participated in this study and were
randomly assigned to an experimental and a control group. Par-
ticipants signed an informed consent approved by the local board
of the Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. Written informed
consent was obtained before inclusion from all participants. Other
inclusion criteria for study participation were no dyslexia (teach-
ers statement) and a BMI not higher than 25. No participant had
to be excluded due to these criteria. Sixteen participants were
excluded from data analysis due to a performance incongruent
to the instruction, i.e. a F% (number of all errors related to the
total number of responses) higher than 20. The remaining sam-
ple (80 male and 19 female) had a mean age of 14.98 years
(S.D. = 0.78, n= 52) in the control (44 male, 8 female) and of 15.04
years (S.D. = 0.87, n= 47) in the experimental group (36 male, 11
female). According to Brickenkamp [3], gender has no effect on
the results in the d2, so we randomly recruited and assigned the
students in the participating classes to the groups regardless of
gender.
Neuropsychological performance of the students was assessed
in the areas of attention and concentration using the d2-test [3].
The d2-test is a paper and pencil letter-cancellation test that con-
sists of 14 lines of 47 randomly mixed letters each (either d or p).
Subjects are instructed to mark, within 20 s for each line, only the
letter “d” within a string of letters (“d” and “p”), only when 2 dashes
are arranged either individually or in pairs above and below “d”.
After 20 s there is an acoustic signal, which shows the subjects to
continue with the next line. The test lasts 4.67min.
The d2-test determines the capacity to focus on one stimu-
lus/fact, while suppressing awareness to competing distractors [3].
Processes of selective attention are also required for successful
completion, since not only the letter “d” is orthographically sim-
ilar to the letter “p”, but there are many distractor letters “d” with
more than 2 dashes [3]. According to Miller and Cohen [15], the
selective attention mechanism measured with the d2-test is in fact
just a special case of cognitive control – one in which the biasing
occurs in the sensory domain or a measure of response inhibition
and executive functions [14].
The performance on this test does not correlate with IQ, but
reflects visual perceptual speed and concentrative capacities. The
internal test–retest reliability of the d2-test of attention has been
proven to be extraordinarily high (0.95–0.98) for all parameters
[3]. Its criterion, construct, and predictive validity have been doc-
umented, and test values have been shown to be stable over an
extended period of up to 23 months after initial testing [3].
The heart rate was measured during exercise sessions in both
groups using a heart rate monitor (HRM RS400, Polar, Kempele,
Finland). The heart rate data (every 5s) were downloaded to a
computer.
Coordinative exercises were selected from special coordinative
training forms for soccer [19]and exercises from the Munich Fitness
Test [18]. Within these exercises different bilateral coordinative
abilities were stressed within short periods of time, for example,
the ability to balance, to react, to adjust and to differentiate [19].
Exercises were organized in stations with a maximum of four stu-
dents at each station per time. Altogether, the pupils completed five
different CE for 1.75 min each.
At station 1 the participants were asked to bounce a volleyball
alternating with the left or right hand while standing on a turned
sport bench. At the second station the task was to bounce a basket-
ball and a volleyball respectively with the left and the right hand at
the same time. Task 3 was to throw a handball alternating with the
left and right hand into a gymnastic hoop at a distance of 10m. In
the fourth exercise two pupils faced each other in a distance of 5 m,
one with a handball and the other with a football. They were asked
to pass the balls alternating with the right and left hand and/or with
the foot at the same time. In the fifth exercise pupils bounced a vol-
leyball with the hand and were asked to control a soccerball with
the foot at the same time altogether on one half of the volleyball
court.
In the 10min of the normal sport lesson the physical education
teachers instructed the students to exercise at a moderate inten-
sity without any specific coordinative request. The teachers who
accomplished this intervention had a special qualification to advise
the students to exercise at the same intensity as the CE group but
without any specification on motor coordination.
In the week before the first testing the students were introduced
to the test procedure and instructed how to complete it. The mea-
surements of the d2-tests took place immediately after a normal
school lesson (pre-test, week 2) and after 10 min of coordinative
exercise or after 10 min of a normal sport lesson (post-test, week 3),
and were accomplished in a quiet room. The interval between the
test sessions was 1 week in each case. The adolescents participating
in the normal sport lesson served as controls. On the test days the
students refrained from any exercise prior to the investigation.
The total number of responses (GZ) within the d2-test, the stan-
dardized number of correct responses minus errors of confusion
(SKL), and the number of all errors related to the total number of
responses (F%) are calculated and used as a parameter for sustained
attention and concentration. The GZ value is a quantitative measure
of the working speed, and the F% value is a qualitative measure
of precision and thoroughness. Both values are subject to learning
effects. The SKL value is interpreted as independent from adulter-
ation and, thus, an objective measure of concentration. It reflects
individual attention span and concentration ability [3]. It is calcu-
lated by the total number of correctly marked items minus errors
of confusion. Raw values were expressed in percentiles (derived
from age-matched norm samples [3]), in order to achieve age-
independent test scores. Additionally, changes across test trials
were computed as difference scores between pre- and post-test
(improvement = (Mt1−Mt2)/(Mt1)×100).
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H. Budde et al. / Neuroscience Letters 441 (2008) 219–223 221
Table 1
Results of the 2 (pre-test, post-test)×2 (CE, NSL) repeated measure ANOVA with the main effects time and group for the total number of responses (GZ), the standardized
value of the number of correct responses minus errors of confusion (SKL), and the number of errors related to the total number of responses (F%)
Measure Time Group Group ×time
Fd.f. p2Fd.f. p2Fd.f. p2
GZ 68.18 1 <.01 .41 .03 1 .87 15.46 1 <.01 .14
SKL 99.92 1 <.01 .51 .35 1 .56 20.93 1 <.01 .18
F% 52.62 1 <.01 .35 .81 1 .37 12.14 1 <.01 .11
A2×2 mixed factor analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to
test for differences between pre- and post-test (within) and dif-
ferences between the experimental (CE) and the control group
(NSL) (between). Analysis was conducted separately for the out-
come variables GZ, F%, and SKL. Greenhouse Geyser adjustment was
reported when the sphericity assumption was violated. Post hoc
contrasts (Bonferroni adjustment) were used to determine effects
within the two groups (CE, NSL). Since gender showed no signif-
icant effect on pre- to post-test changes (always p> .05), we did
not include gender in the analysis. Group specific differences in
learning efficiency were analyzed using t-tests for independent
samples. To analyze intertrial correlations for the experimen-
tal and control groups, Pearson’s bivariate correlations were
computed.
A 2 (pre-test, post-test)×2 (CE, NSL) ANOVA revealed a signifi-
cant effect of time (pre-test, post-test), no significant effect of group
and a significant group ×time interaction for the outcome vari-
ables GZ, SKL, and F% (cf. Table 1 for statistics). All participants
improved their d2 performance from pre- to post-test throughout
practice and decreased the number of errors across time (cf. Fig. 1
and Table 2). The interaction, however, indicated a different pre- to
post-test development for experimental and control group. Fig. 1
displays the pre- and post-test performance and indicates that the
CE group improved performances from pre- to post-test to a higher
degree as compared to the NSL group. Post hoc contrasts revealed
an improvement in d2 performance for both groups across test ses-
sions for SKL, GZ, and F% (always p< .01). Additionally, post hoc tests
revealed no significant group differences in pre-test (p>.05), but in
post-test for SKL and F%(p< .05).
Improvement across test sessions was analyzed using differ-
ence scores. The t-tests for independent samples revealed group
differences for performance improvement as significant for GZ
(t(97) = 3.67, p<.01,ω2= .11), SKL (t(97) = 4.44, p<.01, ω2= .16), and
for F%(t(96) = −3.85, p<.01, ω2= .12) (cf. Fig. 2 and Table 2). These
results indicated that CE led to a higher improvement of d2 perfor-
mance.
The heart rate revealed no significant difference between the
control (M= 121.96, S.D.= 27.06) and the experimental (M= 122.30,
S.D. =21.91) group (t(44) = 0.05, p= .96).
Table 2
Means (M) and Standard Deviations (S.D.) for d2 performance (GZ, SKL, F%) at pre-
and post-test and for the performance improvement (difference scores, I GZ, I SKL,
IF%) for the experimental (CE) and control group (NSL)
Measure CE NSL
MS.D. MS.D.
GZ
Pre-GZ 413.64 70.49 430.42 77.73
Post-GZ 473.06 64.94 452.10 63.15
SKL
Pre-SKL 97.38 8.86 99.48 10.09
Post-SKL 107.32 7.66 103.27 8.65
F%
Pre-F% 7.98 4.22 7.27 4.22
Post-F% 3.99 2.96 5.83 2.83
Improvement
IGZ −15.67 12.70 −6.39 12.45
ISKL −10.64 7.61 −4.20 6.83
IF% 43.17 47.06 10.48 36.71
Note: Negative values for the difference scoresfor I GZ and I SKL, and positive values
for I F% indicate performance improvements.
The correlation between pre- and post-test performance was
higher for the control group (GZ: r(52) = .78, F%(52) = .71; SKL:
r(52) = .77) than for the experimental group (GZ: r(52) = .77,
F%(52) = .35; SKL: r(52) =.67), particularly regarding the number of
errors.
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of 10 min
of physical exercise on concentration and attention performance
in a school setting. Adolescent students participated in 10 min of
coordinative exercise or a non-specific physical education lesson,
respectively, and afterwards performed the d2-test [3]. Results
revealed an enhanced attention and concentration performance in
both groups with a significantly higher progression in the CE group.
This was true for all measures of the d2; the SKL value as well as for
the quantity (GZ) and the quality of working which comes along
with a decline in value of incorrect marked items (F%). Since the
heart rate was the same in both groups, this supports that the coor-
dinative character of the exercise is responsible for the significant
difference between the two groups.
Fig. 1. (a) Results of the GZ for the experimental group (CE) and the control group (NSL). (b) Results of SKL for the experimental group (CE) and the control group (NSL). (c)
Results of F% for the experimental group (CE) and the control group (NSL).
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222 H. Budde et al. / Neuroscience Letters 441 (2008) 219–223
Fig. 2. (a) Performance improvements in GZ from pre- to post-test for the experimental group (CE) and the control group (NSL). (b) Performance improvements in SKL from
pre- to post-test for the experimental group (CE) and the control group (NSL). (c) Performance improvements in F% from pre- to post-test for the experimental group (CE)
and the control group (NSL).
On the basis of human brain imaging and animal studies show-
ing that neuronal structures like the cerebellum and the frontal
lobe are responsible for coordination as well as cognition [20] it
was hypothesized that coordinative exercise would be more effec-
tive than the control condition in improvingthe spee d and accuracy
of the following concentration and attention task. Picard and Strick
[16] specified that motor complexity co-varies with the pattern of
brain activation, and thus the degree of information processing. It
has been suggested that automatic motor behaviors, like they were
requested during the 10 min of exercise without an emphasis on
motor coordination (NSL), are controlled by the basal ganglia [7].
The higher the motor demand, the more prefrontal cortex activity
is required during the execution of motor tasks [20]. Thus, the type
of exercise stressed in the CE group is believed to require a higher
variety of frontal-dependent cognitive processes as compared to
completing basic moves at a moderate intensity [21].
In addition to an activation of neural parts of the brain like the
frontal lobes [10], CE is supposed to lead to an excitation of the
cerebellum [6] which is also responsible for mediating cognitive
functions [23]. Our results suggest that CE leads to a facilitation
of neuronal networks resulting in a general pre-activation of con-
sequent cortical activities responsible for cognitive functions like
attention. In contrast, the normal sport lesson might require the
participants to perform more automated movements and in turn
prefrontal structures might not be directly required to the same
extent than in the coordinative tasks. The result is a less effi-
cient neurophysiological profile which could be responsible for the
poorer outcome in the d2-test.
A likelihood of a specific effect of CE, regardless of pre-test
performance, could also be confirmed by analyzing the individual
differences from pre- to post-test.The correlation between pre- and
post-test performance was higher for the control than for the exper-
imental group, particularly regarding the number of errors. While
in the control group individual participants maintained their per-
formance levels relative to one another from pre- to post-test, the
individuals of the experimental group reduced the amount of errors
regardless of their initial performance. This might indicate that the
performance increase of the control group was caused by learning
effects while the performance of the experimental group (particu-
larly the reduced number of errors) was more strongly influenced
by the intervention program.
Our study was designed as a “proof of principle” experiment,
probing the effects of a single bout of bimanual coordinative exer-
cise on concentration and attention. Because of its pilot character,
the study lacks a group being inactive for the two time points. This
explains why the reported effects could only compare CE and NSL
and do not provide information about the effect of acute exercise
in general. The SKL value, which is considered as the most stable
value, increased in both groups when the test was applied a second
time. As stated by Brickenkamp [3], the internal test–retest relia-
bility of the d2-test of attention has been proven to be high. Due to
the improvement in SKL over the time in both groups, however, we
cannot separate a general effect of acute exercise from a learning
effect which might interfere with the impact of the compounds on
attention.
The missing assessment of further neuropsychological functions
beyond performance on the d2-test makes it difficult to issue a
generalized statement of changed cognitive functions. The d2-test
performance, however, as used in the current study is known to be a
measure of response inhibition and executive functions [14] and to
be related to school performance [3]. Additionally, it is well known
that concentration deficits are associated with poorer academic
performance [2]. Hillman and co-workers [12] argued in a study
with undergraduate students that the allocation of attentional
resources benefits executive control function. Thus, a faultless func-
tion of attention can be seen as a predictor for efficient cognitive
control and academic performance.
Taken together, our results support the request for more short
bouts of exercise in schools with a focus on coordinative skills, for
example, via instructed exercise in school breaks. The fact that our
results were achieved with students of an elite performance school,
where the students practice sport every day (25–30h per week)
supports our demand for more acute coordinative exercise.
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