Exercising Outside the Box: The Effects of Sensory Stimuli on Attention and Effort

Background: Research on perceived exertion provides support for the negative effects of internal focus on exercise enjoyment and adherence (Beilock, Carr, MacMahon, & Starkes, 2002). Accordingly, attention shifts from an external focus to an internal focus as the workload intensity increases. This attentional shift in turn leads to increased levels of perceived effort and exertion. The purpose of these studies was to test the effectiveness of select sensory stimuli (e.g., visual, auditory, olfactory, gustative) in delaying the attentional shift and facilitating effort expenditure.

Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to experimental, control and placebo conditions. They completed either a standardized weighted stepping task or a handgrip squeezing task. Perceived exertion and attention were monitored and assessed every 30 seconds throughout the task performance.

Results: Results indicated that the presence of sensory stimuli helped reduce perceived exertion and delayed the shift of attention from external to internal focus. A larger effect was produced by the presentation of visual and auditory stimuli, compared to olfactory and gustative stimuli.

Discussion and Conclusions: The use of sensory stimuli can facilitate effort perception and delay the attentional shift. Taken together, these results can help practitioners develop interventions and strategies to decrease effort perception and increase enjoyment and adherence in exercise. Additional research should define optimal intensities and exposure timelines to these stimuli in order to ultimately improve their ergogenic effect within effort settings.