This experimental study found that different intensity exercise training of eight weeks on college students had a positive impact on their memory effect. Recent research indicates that exercise can promote brain changes to improve learning, memory, and all kinds of abilities.First of all, exercise improve the executive function.An important factor contributing to the improvement of learning ability is the content of the exercise training program which contain rich executive function operations. The training process is the process of repeatedly practicing and using executive functions, which is responsible for organizing and controlling goal-directed behavior; it is the total set of cognitive processes, including complex, non-automated processes that coordinate individuals' lower cognitive processes in goal-directed behavior[24]. Located in the prefrontal cortex, neural circuits for executive functions are important, and low and moderate intensity exercise can activate this brain region, making individuals in the process of learning tasks associated with executive functions get better grades[25].Secondly, exercise can improve memory. Studies have found that memory, as a higher cognitive function of the brain, has a more complex internal mechanism. When the exercise is near the memory material, its effect on memory lasts for 24 hours or more[26]. After 10 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise before listening vocabulary memorization, the participants had a positive promoting effect on the memory effect of the free-recall task[27]. Coles's research explores respectively 40 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic cycling effect on short-term memory and long-term memory, it is found that in the test of vocabulary learning tasks, short-term memory level tested immediately did not differ significantly from that of the control group and after a 12-minute delay, the exercise group had a significantly better effect on long-term memory than the control group[28].
From the perspective of the value and effect of knowledge memory, we derive the following: the process of memory effect is the main way to promote cognitive development. The learning mechanism of declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge is to study the formation process of human cognitive structure, intelligence skills and cognitive strategies. In the process of basketball dribbling and badminton whipping, students sharpen their thinking process as these exercises sharpen the thought process of practicing continuous motor skills, constantly practicing new skills, analyzing technical characteristics, and judging the timing of hitting the ball and other thinking processes. In the process of learning these skills (basketball dribbling and badminton whipping skills), learners' knowledge acquisition and cognitive strategies can be trained and formed.
It can be seen that exercise intervention of different intensity can improve memory effect, and this result provides in-depth experimental evidence that physical exercise improves academic performance and learning level. It also provides a practical basis for selecting a reasonable exercise intervention program from aerobic exercise intensity to improve memory effect.
Further analysis of this experiment found that the level of declarative knowledge could be significantly improved through different intensity exercise interventions. The intensity of basketball and badminton was controlled by setting factors such as speed, content, and times of movement. In this study, the basketball program adopts dribbling the ball on the move with different speeds as the test content, while the badminton program adopts flat driving at different speeds as the practice content. Different exercise speeds were applied to change the heart rate of participants to achieve the target exercise intensity. In this study, it was found that the moderate-intensity exercise interventions of these two kinds of exercise programs significantly improved declarative knowledge level, but the level of procedural knowledge was not improved obviously.This finding is consistent with previous research. After 30 minutes of power cycling exercise, the researchers found that moderate intensity acute aerobic exercise had a positive effect on the promotion of declarative memory, mainly through promoting the encoding process of declarative memory to improve the ability of long-term memory[29]. The study by Labban's team and Roig's team suggests that "the effect of aerobic exercise on memory is primarily related to memory encoding and early consolidation processing, which better explains the effect of exercise on declarative memory[30].
In the first stage of the declarative knowledge memory process, learners capture new knowledge, make it enter short-term memory, activate and connect with relevant knowledge in long-term memory, and form new meanings. The initial stage of learning basketball dribbling and badminton flat strokes is a learning process that requires declarative knowledge, and students must first master the technical essentials of basketball dribbling and badminton flat strokes. In the second stage, the learner must embed the newly constructed meaning in their long-term memory. The learner must also frequently review the acquired knowledge and endeavor to acquire more related knowledge, otherwise, the already acquired knowledge may diminish over time. By exercising for 30 minutes three times a week for eight weeks, students can master the skills of basketball dribbling and badminton flat strokes at different speeds through continuous practice. The third stage involves the extraction and application of these meanings. According to the biological theory analysis of the internal mechanism of the effect of exercise on memory, Winter et,al.[31], explores the brain derived neurotic factor (BDNF) , with different intensity of acute exercise level changing, they found moderate intensity exercise can promote vocabulary learning and increase BDNF level Studies have pointed out that BDNF is an essential factor for long-term memory consolidation in the hippopotamus[32].
To sum up, through 8weeks of low and moderate different intensity exercise intervention,students can skillfully change different speeds to practice basketball dribbling and badminton flat strokes as directed by trainers. The intervention characteristics of the exercise programs in this study are consistent with the characteristics of the declarative knowledge memory effect stage,it can effectively improve memory ability by promoting the encoding process of declarative memory. Secondly, moderate intensity exercise may effectively release various microbiological factors, thus promoting the encoding or consolidation process of memory formation.Therefore, exercises can significantly improve the acquisition of declarative knowledge.
This study found no significant improvement in procedural knowledge. This result is consistent with the results of previous studies. Some studies have found that after 30 minutes of moderate intensity acute aerobic exercise, the subjects' procedural memory does not have a significant improvement effect[33-34]. Ostadan's experiment explored the effect of aerobic exercise on procedural memory retention after 8 hours, and found that although the exercise group had a positive effect on procedural memory retention compared with the control group, it did not achieve a significant effect.
Similarly, the three stages of procedural knowledge memory effect are as follows: the first stage is the same as declarative learning; the second stage is to transform declarative knowledge into procedural knowledge, learners need to go through some variant practice to learn to use the rules. In our study, after 8 weeks of exercise intervention, the students mastered the dribbling and flat stroke skills at different speeds in basketball and badminton respectively and they could make the correct technical changes according to the requirements of different speeds. During Stage three, students were required to learn skills to achieve a certain degree of automation.This stage required students to be able to use it well in practical competitions.
For example, in "basketball 3V3,” the technical transformation of fast and slow dribbles needs to be adjusted constantly according to the techniques and strategy; in badminton doubles, the speed and position of the flat strokes should be predicted according to the opponent's strokes.
However, the exercise program in this study does not involve much in the practice of techniques and tactics. It was not quite consistent with the third stage of procedural knowledge memory effect. The first and second stages of procedural knowledge memory effect are closely related to the third stage of declarative knowledge test. The third stage of procedural knowledge memory effect requires the transfer and transformation of declarative knowledge. However, the research program in this study involves few learning essentials in this stage.According to relevant memory theories, the processing time of memory is relatively long, and sufficient procedural knowledge learning process is needed to better extract and consolidate memory. Aerobic exercise plays an important role in procedural memory, and its positive effect may be more prominent with the optimization of exercise intervention programs[35-36]. So, exercise does not improve procedural knowledge significantly.
The results of this study showed that exercise interventions of different intensity had a positive effect on knowledge acquisition, but this effect was selective; that is, exercise can improve the learning level of declarative knowledge, but not of procedural knowledge. These results suggest that in future exercise intervention research, the design and selection of exercise intervention programs should be more abundant. More attention should be paid to the independent and interactive effects of other components of physical exercise (such as exercise type and content) on knowledge acquisition.
This experiment found that there was no significant difference in the knowledge level of college students of different genders after performing physical exercises of different intensity.
Other findings from the research include (1) low and moderate intensity physical exercises can effectively improve the mental health of college students; (2) Moderate but slightly more intense exercise has better mental health benefit for male college students, moderate but slightly less intense exercise has better mental health benefit for female college students, Moderate and low intensity exercise has positive mental health benefit for male college students and female college students, but there is no significant difference[37]; (3) the differences in psychological changes and knowledge acquisition due to the intensity of the physical exercises between male and female students is not significant.
The process of knowledge acquisition is influenced by the brain's executive function; studies have found that short-term physical exercises of different intensities have a positive effect on the brain’s executive function of college students and does not change with gender. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brains of various people have shown that the executive function in a normal person has specific brain activity patterns, which are regulated by age, but not affected by gender differences[38].