Exergame Can Improve Children’s Executive Function: The Role Of Physical Intensity And Cognitive Engagement

Executive Function,refers to advanced cognitive processes that control and regulate other cognitive processes,including working memory,inhibition control,and cognitive flexibility,as a high-level cognitive ability when completing complex cognitive tasks.Executive function is an important predictor of a child’s physical and mental health,quality of life,school success,marital happiness,and public safety.Studies have shown that physical activity can improve children’s executive function,such as mindfulness yoga,coordinated exercise,martial arts,exergame,and so on.Exergame is also a kind of physical activity,as a synthetic word,which is a combination of exercise and game and can be seen as physical activity for stimulating a more active whole body gaming experience.This study is intended to carry out 2(high/low physical intensity)x 2(high/low cognitive engagement)x 3(measurement time)mixed experimental design,which the within-subject variables are physical intensity and cognitive engagement,the between-subject variable is measurement time,and 122 children aged 4-6 years were trained for six weeks.Results: After the first training and long-term training,in working memory,high physical intensity was significantly better than low physical intensity.After long-term training,high cognitive engagement was significantly better than low cognitive engagement in working memory and cognitive flexibility.In addition,the cognitive engagement effect is greater than the effect of physical intensity in working memory.The study found that in one-time training,physical intensity of exergame can improve children’s executive function,especially working memory.In long-term training,physical intensity and cognitive engagement in exergame can promote executive function in children,especially working memory and cognitive flexibility.Also,cognitive engagement was more effective than physical intensity.