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Real-world cognitive benefits of acute classroom-based exercise in a large-scale sample of schoolchildren

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Weijia Zhu^1,2 (), Zhihao Zhang², Xun Luo^1,2, Liye Zou², Matthew Heath¹; ¹University of Western Ontario, ²Shenzhen University

An accumulating literature has reported that acute physical activity (PA) positively benefits executive function (EF); however, such benefits have been largely limited to controlled laboratory settings and not large-scale, real-world classroom replications. This represents a salient limitation because from the current literature it is unclear whether PA elicits domain-general or domain-specific EF benefits, and whether pre-class PA provides a larger EF “boost” compared to pre-class activities focusing on cognitive training. Here, 99 children (8-10 years) from four classes participated in a real-world classroom experiment comprising four groups: (1) 10-min mentally passive sitting (i.e., video watching), (2) 10-min mentally active sitting (i.e., math training), (3) 5-min sitting and 5-min PA, and (4) 10-min of PA involving instructor-guided group physical exercise (i.e., running, knee lifts, and deep squats). Domain-general (Flanker task) and domain-specific (negative priming task) EF were evaluated at baseline (T0), post-intervention (T1), and after a 40-min math lesson (T2). Bayesian linear mixed models were used to examine reaction time (RT) and inverse efficiency scores (IES) across domain-general and -specific tasks. Results for the domain-general assessment did not elicit RT or IES changes across T0 to T2. Notably, however, for the domain-specific assessment, the 10-min PA condition showed improved IES at T2 compared to T0, whereas no other group showed a similar benefit. Thus, in the context of a real-world classroom setting, a brief bout of PA provides a specific and durable benefit to a domain-specific component of EF.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control