The Effect of Exercise Intensity and Cognitive Involvement in Exergame on College Students’ Spatial Cognition

Objective: To Investigate the mechanism of exergame training on spatial cognition in college students. Methods: A mixed experimental design of 2(intensity: low/moderate-vigorous) ×2(load: low/high) ×4(time: pretest, single training, 5 weeks, 10weeks) was used in this study, and 72 students were trained for 10 weeks(3 times/week; 60 minutes/time) through exergame.Results: 1) After single training, spatial visualization of the moderate-vigorous + high cognitive group was significantly improved;2) as the training period extends, the advantages of the moderate-vigorous intensity + high cognitive training group were further expanded, and the low intensity + high cognitive training group was also better than that of the low cognitive group; 3) after 5 weeks training, only the moderate-vigorous intensity + high cognitive group eliminated the gender difference in spatial visualization, but the difference was observed again with the increase of training time. Conclusions: 1) Spatial cognition function is mainly affected by exercise intensity during single exergame training; 2) in long-term training, spatial cognition function is influenced by both exercise intensity and cognition involvement level, and the spatial cognition effect induced by cognition involvement is greater than that of exercise intensity; 3) exergame training can only reduce the gender difference in spatial cognition function, but cannot eliminate it.