Long-term mind-body exercise enhances cognitive control over working memory-driven attentional capture

Internal representations in working memory (WM) automatically bias attention toward matching stimuli, a process termed WM-driven attentional capture that is modulated by cognitive control. Although previous studies have found that mind-body exercise has a promoting effect on cognitive control, the effect of mind-body exercise on resistance to proactive interference from working memory has yet to be investigated. The present study used the classic WM/visual search dual-task paradigm to investigate the effects of baduanjin mind-body exercise on WM-driven attentional capture. Sixty-seven healthy college students were randomly allocated to a training group or a control group. The training group underwent 16 weeks of baduanjin intervention at a frequency of 3 days/week for 60 min/session. The results showed that mind-body exercise significantly reduced reaction times (RTs) in both visual search and WM tasks. More importantly, the training group showed a significant reduction in WM-driven attentional capture during the posttest phase compared with the same measure during the pretest phase. However, the control group showed no such improvement. These results indicated that mind-body exercise could modulate WM-driven attentional capture, potentially attributable to strengthened top-down cognitive control and optimized allocation of attentional resources. The present study provides preliminary evidence that long-term mind-body exercise improves the young individuals' ability to resist proactive interference at the memory level, enriching our understanding of the association between exercise and distractor suppression.