title: Intense Physical Exercise Reduces Overt Attentional Capture.
abstract: The abrupt onset of a visual stimulus typically results in overt attentional capture, which can be quantified by saccadic eye movements. Here, we tested whether attentional capture following onset of task-irrelevant visual stimuli (new object) is reduced after a bout of intense physical exercise. A group of participants performed a visual search task in two different activity conditions: rest, without any prior effort, and effort, immediately after an acute bout of intense exercise. The results showed that participants exhibited (1) slower reaction time of the first saccade toward the target when a new object was simultaneously presented in the visual field, but only in the rest activity condition, and (2) more saccades to the new object in the rest activity condition than in the effort activity condition. We suggest that immediately after an acute bout of effort, participants improved their ability to inhibit irrelevant (distracting) stimuli.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Gestión y Ciencias Aplicadas a la Actividad Física, Universidad Católica de Valencia, Valencia, and with the Universidad Internacional Valenciana, Valencia, Spain.
authors.forename: Francesc
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Llorens
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sanabria
authors.forename: Florentino
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Huertas
authors.forename: Enrique
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Molina
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bennett
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology*; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult