The Impact of Sports on Working and Long-Term Memory

Abstract

This paper explores how playing a sport affects someone’s working and/or long-term memory. Overall, athletes outperformed non-athletes in both working and long-term memory, but the results were only significant for working memory. Specifically, when looking at individual tasks that participants completed, the athletes had a stronger visuospatial working memory. This study found that non-contact athletes outperformed contact athletes in long term memory to a significant degree. However, it found no differences between team and individual sports in regards to working or long term memory. Gender and length of time playing a sport were two other categories this study viewed to see if they impacted memory, but no significant results were found in either category. The overall strength of athletes in both long-term and working memory, though only significant in working memory, suggests that athletes may have a memory advantage as a result of playing sports. While this study had a large sample size of 599 participants, it lacked equal groups when drawing comparisons. Future studies should aim to recruit a specific amount of athletes per each sport and group into high-level collegiate athletes, amateur athletes, and non-athletes. Equal categories will help to draw more concrete conclusions and further determine whether there is an advantage for athletes and what could be causing that.