Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Ocular Measures of Attention to Emotionally Expressive Faces
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Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Ocular Measures of Attention to Emotionally Expressive Faces Nathaniel J. Thom 1
&
Mark J. Campbell 2,3 & Colby Reyes 4 & Matthew P. Herring 2,5
# International Society of Behavioral Medicine 2020
Abstract Background Mechanisms underlying exercise-induced mood enhancement are not well understood, but it is plausible that adaptive changes in attention to emotional stimuli underlie this effect. Thus, this study examined the effects of acute aerobic exercise on eye-tracking metrics while participants viewed emotionally expressive faces. Methods Thirty-four adults (18 women) aged 21.1 ± 1.4 years completed two counterbalanced 30-min conditions: vigorous running or seated rest. Eye tracking occurred pre- and 20-min post-condition. Participants viewed positive (n = 15), negative (n = 15), and neutral (n = 15) emotional facial expressions from the NimStim repository. Fixation duration, longest fixation, number of fixations, and scan path length were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVAs. Results Exercise improved mood, but had no effect on the dependent measures (all 3-way interactions p > 0.66). However, a main effect of emotionally expressive content for fixation duration (p = 0.04, η = 0.10) and a marginally significant effect for longest fixation (p = 0.06, ηp2 = 0.09) were detected, such that fixation duration and longest fixation were greatest for faces expressing positive emotions. Conclusion These preliminary findings indicated that acute exercise did not alter the processing of expressive faces as indexed by eye-tracking metrics of attention. However, eye tracking effectively detected processing patterns indicative of a pleasure bias while viewing emotional facial expressions. Keywords Eye tracking . Emotion . Face perception . NimStim . Facial expressions
Introduction Exercise is well-known to enhance self-reported mood among those with behavioral health concerns [1–3], and those without diagnosed behavioral health issues (i.e., neurotypicals) [4, 5], yet the psychobiological mechanisms underlying the exerciseinduced mood enhancement are understudied and therefore not well understood. Because individuals with mood disorders tend to have mood-congruent emotional processing issues [6–9],
* Nathaniel J. Thom [email protected] Mark J. Campbell [email protected] Colby Reyes [email protected] Matthew P. Herring [email protected]
several studies have explored the possibility that acute exercise might alter mood by altering emotional processing. Some of these studies have assessed attentional bias after acute exercise [10–12], but there may be potential methodological concerns with the way attentional bias is typically measured. Moreover, when compared with those with anxiety, neurotypical individuals do not commonly demonstrate strong attentional biases, yet they do benefit from pronounced mood enhancement after exercise; why is that? Perhaps the mood improvement resulting
1
Department of Biology, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 6018
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