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Athletes have significantly better working memory than sedentary people
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
In cognitive science, the relationship between sports expertise and working memory has received increasing attention in recent years. However, until now, there has been no meta-analysis comparing working memory performance in athletes and non-athletes.
The Active Mind group at the Department of Psychology at the University of Jyväskylä conducted a study to comprehensively compare the working memory performance of the two groups. Factors such as the type of sport and level of training and their impact on the results were also examined.
Athletes were found to have an advantage in working memory performance compared to non-athletes, regardless of sport type or training level. Notably, this advantage was more pronounced when comparing athletes to a sedentary population than in an analysis in which the sedentary population was excluded from the non-athlete group.
The results, published in the journal Memory, show that there is a strong link between exercise and improved working memory, while a sedentary lifestyle is associated with poorer working memory.
Pia Astikainen, associate professor and head of the research group, notes that their team has previously studied the effects of aging on cognitive and brain function and found that a physically active lifestyle can partially mitigate the negative effects of aging. The current results obtained in athletes add to the evidence in favor of the benefits of sports for human cognitive abilities and highlight the importance of physical activity for maintaining brain health.
The study is part of the SportsFace project and Chenxiao Wu's dissertation work, supervised by Associate Professor Pia Astikainen. The goal of the SportsFace project is to investigate the effects of sport on cognitive functions and face perception using electrophysiological and behavioral methods. The results will help to better understand the relationship between sport, working memory, and social cognition.