THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND COGNITIVE FAILURES IN MIDDLE-AGED ADULTS

Abstract: Cognitive failures (CF) refers to the experience of daily attentional lapses or workingmemory mishaps; for example, reading something and instantly forgetting what you haveread, or experiencing missing out on obvious information from street signs. Relationsbetween CF and psychological stress have been found, where higher levels of stress indicatea higher risk of experiencing CF, and the other way around. Psychological stress is proven tobe moderated by physical activity. However, there are scarce findings on the directrelationship between physical activity and CF. This thesis investigates by a cross-sectionalobservational design if there is a relationship between cognitive failures and physical activityin the middle-aged population. All data were collected by a web-based survey with thequestionnaires CFQ, IPAQ and PSS-10 followed by the short task Digit Span. The sampleconsisted of 78 participants between the ages of 50-65 (M = 56). A two-stage hierarchicallinear regression was performed. The results showed no association between CF and physicalactivity, however CF was associated with stress and sex. The results are confirming previousfindings in terms of the relationship between CF and stress, as well as the small, yetsignificant, sex difference where women tend to report higher levels of stress and higherlevels of CF. Further research is of need, to investigate the direct interventional effectphysical activity could have on CF in the general population.