Citation

Johnstone A, Marí-Beffa P. Front. Psychol. 2018; 9: e80.

Affiliation

School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, United Kingdom.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Frontiers Research Foundation)

DOI

10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00080

PMID

29472878

PMCID

PMC5809487

Abstract

There is substantial evidence that training in Martial Arts is associated with improvements in cognitive function in children; but little has been studied in healthy adults. Here, we studied the impact of extensive training in Martial Arts on cognitive control in adults. To do so, we used the Attention Network Test (ANT) to test two different groups of participants: with at least 2 years of Martial Arts experience, and with no experience with the sport. Participants were screened from a wider sample of over 500 participants who volunteered to participate. 48 participants were selected: 21 in the Martial Arts group (mean age = 19.68) and 27 in the Non-Martial Arts group (mean age = 19.63). The two groups were matched on a number of demographic variables that included Age and BMI, following the results of a previous pilot study where these factors were found to significantly impact the ANT measures. An effect of Martial Arts experience was found on the Alert network, but not the Orienting or Executive ones. More specifically, Martial Artists showed improved performance when alert had to be sustained endogenously, performing more like the control group when an exogenous cue was provided. This result was further confirmed by a negative correlation between number of years of Martial Arts experience and the costs due to the lack of an exogenous cue suggesting that the longer a person takes part in the sport, the better their endogenous alert is.

RESULTS are interpreted in the context of the impact of training a particular attentional state in specific neurocognitive pathways.

Language: en

Keywords

Martial Arts; alerting; attention; attention training; cognitive control; cross-sectional; typical adults