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Background: As people’s quality of life improves, maintaining long-term physical, mental, and cognitive health has become a focus of attention. However, the effects of different health-promoting behaviors on executive function (EF) are still unclear. In daily life, motor-cognitive dual-tasks (MCDTs) often need to be performed simultaneously. Research on MCDT training mainly focuses on the elderly, the sick, athletes, and other groups, with a lack of research on college students, who represent a population of normal young people. Based on this, the present study investigated the predictive effects of health- promoting behaviors and their sub-items on EF in college students. In addition, this study used MCDT to assess its time-course effects on EF in college students.
Methods: Eighty-six college students who met the criteria were recruited for this study, and they were randomly assigned to the MCDT group (n=30), aerobic training group (n= 28), and cognitive training group (n = 28). Participants were required to complete the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II scale (HPLP-II) before receiving the intervention. The aerobic training group participated in 20 minutes stationary bike ride, the cognitive training group trained in a calculation task, the Stroop color-word task, a running memory task, and a clue prompting task, and the MCDT group was required to complete both the aerobic and cognitive training tasks. Participants’ inhibition control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility were measured before training, immediately after training, 30 minutes after training, and 1 hour after training by the flanker task, 2-back task, and more-odd shifting task.
Results: College students’ health-promoting behaviors were positively related to the correct rate of the flanker task (r= 0.260, P =.016), the correct rate of the 2-back task (r = 0.342, P= .001), and the correct rate of the more-odd shifting task (r = 0.287, P = .007). Motor-cognitive dual-task led to significant improvements in EF among college students, with significant increases in correct rates on the flanker task (P =.030), the 2-back task (P= .005), and the shifting task (P < 0.001) at 1 hour post intervention. In contrast, the time-course effects of the motor and cognitive groups were insufficient, with no significant improvement in the response time to the flanker task in the motor group (P = .278) and the response time to the shifting task in the cognitive group (P = .129) at 1 hour post intervention.
Conclusion: The health-promoting behaviors positively predicted college students’ EF, in which physical activity, health responsibility (HR) and spiritual growth (SG) positively predicted inhibition control; physical activity, HR, nutrition, and SG positively predicted working memory; and physical activity, HR, and nutrition positively predicted cognitive flexibility. Motor-cognitive dual-task significantly improved EF in college students and showed superior time-course effects compared to aerobic and cognitive single-task training.
Cite this article as: Zhao Y, Yang C. An empirical study of executive function in college students: The predictive role of health-pro-moting behaviors and the time-course effects of motor-cognitive dual-task training Psychiatry Clin Psychopharmacol. Published online June 5, 2025. doi: 10.5152/pcp.2025.251073.