Evidence for the importance of openness to experience on performance of a fluid intelligence task by physically active and inactive participants

The cross-sectional relationship between exercise training history and performance on a fluid intelligence test was examined. In addition, openness to experience was included as a potential trait-based contributor to predicting cognitive performance. Results supported past literature demonstrating that aerobically trained or active participants performed significantly better on the fluid intelligence task than aerobically untrained or inactive participants. Hierarchical regression analysis results revealed, as predicted, that openness to experience was a significant predictor of fluid intellectual performance. When entered into the hierarchical regression equation, openness to experience accounted for 16.0% of unique variance in Culture Fair Intelligence Test performance. By contrast, participants’ exercise training history, which initially and significantly (p <. 05) accounted for approximately 12.0% of the variance in cognitive performance, accounted for 5.0% (p >. 05) after opennes