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. 2022 Sep 28:13:957281.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.957281. eCollection 2022.

Boosting effect of regular sport practice in young adults: Preliminary results on cognitive and emotional abilities

Noemi Passarello  1 , Ludovica Varini  1 , Marianna Liparoti  2 , Emahnuel Troisi Lopez  3 , Pierpaolo Sorrentino  4 , Fabio Alivernini  2 , Onofrio Gigliotta  1 , Fabio Lucidi  2 , Laura Mandolesi  1
Affiliations

Boosting effect of regular sport practice in young adults: Preliminary results on cognitive and emotional abilities

Noemi Passarello et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Several studies have shown that physical exercise (PE) improves behavior and cognitive functioning, reducing the risk of various neurological diseases, protecting the brain from the detrimental effects of aging, facilitating body recovery after injuries, and enhancing self-efficacy and self-esteem. Emotion processing and regulation abilities are also widely acknowledged to be key to success in sports. In this study, we aim to prove that regular participation in sports enhances cognitive and emotional functioning in healthy individuals. A sample of 60 students (mean age = 22.12; SD = 2.40; M = 30), divided into sportive and sedentary, were subjected to a neuropsychological tests battery to assess their overall cognitive abilities (Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices, APM), verbal and graphic fluency (Word Fluency Task and modified Five Point Test, m-FPT), as well as their emotional awareness skills (Toronto Alexithymia Scale, TAS-20). Our results showed that sportive students performed better than sedentary ones in all cognitive tasks. Regarding emotional processing abilities, significant differences were found in the TAS-20 total score as well as in the Difficulty Describing Feelings (DDF) subscale and the Difficulty Identifying Feeling (DIF) subscale. Lastly, gender differences were found in the External-Oriented Thinking (EOT) subscale. Overall, our findings evidence that PE has positive effects on cognitive functioning and emotion regulation, suggesting how sports practice can promote mental health and wellbeing.

Keywords: alexithymia; cognition; emotion regulation; physical activity; sport.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The 2 × 2 ANOVA significant outputs on (A) total words produced and (B) words repetitions. ***p ≤ 0.001.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The 2 × 2 ANOVA significant outputs on (A) total drawings produced, (B) total unique drawings, and (C) strategy index. **p ≤ 0.01; ***p ≤ 0.001.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The 2 × 2 ANOVA significant outputs on (A) total TAS-20 score, (B) DIF factor, (C) DDF factor, and (D) EOT_B factor. DIF, difficulty identifying feelings; DDF, difficulty describing feelings; EOT, external-oriented thinking. *p ≤ 0.05; ***p ≤ 0.001.
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