Research Impact: It is plausible that adaptive changes in attention to emotional stimuli underlie exercise-induced mood enhancement. Thus, we examined the effects of acute aerobic exercise on eye-tracking metrics while 34 young adults viewed positive, neutral, and negative emotionally expressive faces. Exercise improved mood, but had no significant effect on eye-tracking metrics. However, fixation duration and the longest single fixation were greatest for faces expressing positive emotions. These preliminary findings indicated that acute exercise did not alter the processing f expressive faces as indexed by eye-tracking metrics of attention. Eye-tracking did, however, detect processing patterns indicative of pleasure bias.
Thom NJ, Campbell MJ, Reyes C, Herring MP (2020). Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Ocular Measures of Attention to Emotionally Expressive Faces. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-020-09927-z. (IF: 2.139; C=; Q2 Clinical Psychology; R=58/131)
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