Research by Pantzar and colleagues confirms the value of supporting employee efforts to exercise, via onsite exercise facilities, for example. The investigators report that “Aerobic exercise influence cognition in elderly, children, and neuropsychiatric populations…The sample consisted of…office workers…A cognitive test battery (9 tests), assessed processing speed, working memory, executive functions and episodic memory…Groups of moderate…and high…fitness outperformed the group of low…fitness for inhibition and episodic recognition, whereas no significant differences between moderate and high fitness were observed…This has implications on organizational and societal levels; where incentives to improve fitness levels from low to moderate could yield desirable cognitive and health benefits in adults.”
Alexandra Pantzar, Lars Jonasson, Orjan Ekblom, Carl-Johan Boraxbekk, and Maria Ekblom. 2018. “Relationships Between Aerobic Fitness Levels and Cognitive Performance in Swedish Office Workers.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 9, article 2612, http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02612
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.