SynthesisSports medicine - open2022
Acute and Chronic Physical Activity Increases Creative Ideation Performance: A Systematic Review and Multilevel Meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Sports medicine - open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Multi-level meta-analysis of whether fostering creativity during physical activity interventions increases their impact on cognitive and academic outcomes during childhood.Scientific reports · 2023Pooled it
- Acute effects of different resistance training intensities on creative thinking in university students.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Article
- The impact of physical activity on innovative behavior: a moderated mediation model.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Can the Components of Physical Fitness Be Linked to Creative Thinking and Fluid Intelligence in Spanish Schoolchildren?Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Habitual physical activity is related to more creative activities and achievements.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The Impact of Exercise and Health Management on Workplace Creativity.Juntendo Iji zasshi = Juntendo medical journal · 2024Article
- Editorial: Advances in the understanding of the affective and cognitive effects of physical activity, exercise, and sports.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Sensorimotor cortex activity during basketball dribbling and its relation to creativity.PloS one · 2023Article
- The ambulatory battery of creativity: Additional evidence for reliability and validity.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPhysical activity is a health-relevant lifestyle factor associated with various benefits on physical and mental health. Several meta-analyses indicated effects of acute and chronic physical activities on elementary cognitive functions such as executive control processes, memory, and attention. Meta-analytic evidence on the effects of physical activity on creative idea generation, which involves a conglomerate of these elementary cognitive functions, is largely missing.
objectiveA twofold approach was used to evaluate (1) if there is an association between habitual physical activity and creative ideation and (2) if physical activity interventions (acute and chronic) enhance creative ideation performance.
methodsMultilevel meta-analytic methods were applied to (1) evaluate the cross-sectional association between creative ideation performance and measures of habitual physical activity and (2) the effect of physical activity on creative ideation performance. Indicators of creative ideation (fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration, or composite score), creativity domain (verbal, figural), population (adults, children), gender, study quality, and publication year served as moderator variables for both meta-analyses. Analyses of intervention studies additionally examined the moderator variables study design (between, within), time of measurement (during, after), and implementation of intervention (acute, chronic).
resultsThe applied meta-analytic multilevel analysis indicated a medium effect for cross-sectional studies (r = 0.22, SE = 0.06, p = 0.002, 95% CI [0.10-0.34]) based on 17 effects sizes from seven studies. The pooled effects of 28 intervention studies, providing 115 effect sizes, indicated a medium effect size of Hedges' g = 0.47 (SE = 0.09, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.30-0.65]). Furthermore, a stronger effect was observed for chronic interventions of several days or weeks in comparison with acute interventions of one single bout.
conclusionThis study adds important new meta-analytic evidence on the beneficial role of physical activity beyond mental and physical health outcomes: Physical activity has a positive impact on creative ideation, which expands the literature on the role of physical activity in more elementary cognitive functions such as executive control, memory, and attention. Moderator analyses suggested that chronic interventions showed stronger effects than single bouts of physical activity. Rigorously conducted randomized controlled intervention studies and more cross-sectional studies are needed to broaden the evidence in this nascent field of research.
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