This study aims to identify the acute effects of physical exercise on specific cognitive functions immediately following an increase in cardiovascular activity. Stair-climbing exercise is used to increase the cardiovascular output of human subjects. The color-naming Stroop Test was used to identify the cognitive improvements in executive function with respect to processing speed and error rate. The study compared the Stroop results before and immediately after exercise and before and after nonexercise, as a control. The results show that there is a significant increase in processing speed and a reduction in errors immediately after less than 30？min of aerobic exercise. The improvements are greater for the incongruent than for the congruent color tests. This suggests that physical exercise induces a better performance in a task that requires resolving conflict (or interference) than a task that does not. There is no significant improvement for the nonexercise control trials. This demonstrates that an increase in cardiovascular activity has significant acute effects on improving the executive function that requires conflict resolution (for the incongruent color tests) immediately following aerobic exercise more than similar executive functions that do not require conflict resolution or involve the attention-inhibition process (for the congruent color tests). 1. Introduction Physical exercise is known to improve brain functions based on a large body of evidence, ranging from the improvement in academic performance in children to the improvement in cognitive function in both healthy subjects and patients with mental disorders. Numerous studies have shown that exercise is linked to an improvement in academic achievement for schoolchildren [1–5]. The improvement in academic performance is greater for physically fit children than for obese children [6]. Exercise has shown to improve brain processing speed by decreasing the event-related brain potential P300 in healthy subjects with sedentary lifestyles [7]. Brain imaging studies also showed that exercise improves cognitive functions by altering the efficiency of the neural circuitry based on functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) data, especially for overweight children [8]. Physical activities can improve memory and cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s patients and motor functions in Parkinson’s patients. It improves the logical memory and reduces the whole brain cortical atrophy in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) [9]. Treadmill exercise has been shown to enhance memory plasticity function in
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