Exercise-induced arousal and information processing

In In the context of Humphreys and Revelle's (1984) dual resource theory we determined how different levels of arousal induced by physical exercise on a bicycle ergometer, affected human information processing. Humphreys and Revelle's theory claims that, as a function of increasing arousal, the amount of sustained information transfer (SIT) resources increases and the amound of short-term memory (STM) resources decreases. Performance on a SIT-decision task and a STM-decision task was examined under an exercise and control (minimal load) protocol Results indicated that physical exercise positively affected decision time in the SIT-task; this finding is consistent with the Humphreys and Revelle claim that high arousal induced by physical exercise increases the amount of SIT resources No evidence was found for the negative relationship between arousal and STM resources. A possible explanation for this latter finding was discussed in terms of a speed-accuracy tradeoff phenomenon.