ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of acute physical exercise and acute mental exercise on visual reaction time in healthy medical students.

We used a simple reaction time task software developed by the researchers to measure the visual reaction times of the subjects. Reaction times of subjects as well as pulse rates were measured on three different occasions: basal (resting), post acute mental exercise and post acute physical exercise. The acute physical exercise was constructed to last for 5 minutes in a way that would double the basal pulse rate of the participant. The acute mental exercise was induced by five minutes of ADD-3 arithmetics. All volunteered physically healthy medical students from four different medical schools in Turkey without red-green color deficiencies were included in the study.

A total of 232 (136 male, 96 female) individuals with a mean age of 20.79 ± 1.42 were included in the study. Differences between basal reaction time and post-physical exercise reaction time; the basal reaction time and post-mental exercise reaction time were found to be statistically significant. Basal reaction time of participants was found to be the key element deriving both post-mental and physical exercise reaction times. Also, one unit increase in the number of ADD-3 problems solved was associated with 0.21 units decrease in post-mental exercise reaction time.

Both acute mental exercise and acute physical exercise can shorten visual reaction time. Our results also indicate that there might be a relationship between arithmetic capability (ADD-3 arithmetics performance) and visual reaction time.

Keywords: Exercise, pulse, reaction time, software