Effects of Cognitive Control Exertion on Feeling States and Performance of a Graded Exercise Test

Abstract

Exerting cognitive self-control leads to subsequent decrements in muscular and cardiovascular endurance performance. According to the Process Model of self-control, affective feeling states may account for later self-control impairments. Affective feeling states are sensitive to exercise and show a pronounced negative shift in valence at the ventilatory threshold (VT). The purpose of this study was to investigate feeling states in response to a challenging cognitive control task (stop-signal task; SST) followed by a graded exercise task to exhaustion (GXT). Recreationally active participants (N = 20; Mage = 20.25) completed two testing sessions separated by one week. Sessions were counterbalanced, with either a control (SST-C) or experimental (SST-E) task performed prior to each GXT. Feeling states were measured using the Feeling Scale (FS) and Felt Arousal Scale (FAS) throughout both tasks. Time to exhaustion on the GXT was significantly shorter following the SST-E than the SST-C (p < .05; d = .49). Repeated measures MANOVA showed similar within-task changes in FS in both conditions, but no significant differences between conditions during the SST tasks; however, FAS scores were significantly higher during the SST-E compared to the SST-C (p < .01). There were no significant differences in feeling states prior to, or upon completion of, the GXTs. However, FS was significantly less positive at iso-time corresponding to predicted VT in the SST-E condition (p < .05). Results show feeling states during exercise are altered by prior cognitive control exertion. Decreases in positive valence in concert with increased activation may prime a negative shift in affect as exercise becomes more strenuous and thereby reduce self-control (exercise tolerance), as predicted by the Process Model. Alternatively, shifts in affect may reflect responses to physiological manifestations of fatigue that carry over from cognitive to physical tasks and become salient at moderate exercise intensities.