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Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

brainpizza.substack.com

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Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#11

Post by solumunus »

decafninja wrote: post #8
lagniappe wrote: post #6

Exercise just makes me feel good. To me, that's enough. Its not about a routine, or how I look, it's eustress.

I'm the opposite - exercise makes me feel terrible both physically (exhausting) and mentally (boredom), both during and after. I've never experienced "runner's high" or the similar feeling some people describe from lifting weights. If it wasn't for the health and aesthetic benefits, I'd choose to never to exercise again.

I was you once. Once I achieved a high level of fitness and a motivation to push the limits, then I understood what people mean when they say exercise can make you high.

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#12

Post by rfrey »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #2

...in the elderly. And across all tasks it's only half a standard deviation, meaning the result is far from significant. There are lots of good studies on positive effects of exercise in all sorts of ages and populations, but this is not one of them. Edit: Jesus, this thread is proof than HN techies think they know math but actually have no clue about statistics. They are easy prey for this kind of journalism.

Half a standard deviation means going from the 50th percentile of IQ to the 69th. I'm assuming you didn't mean statistical significance since size of movement has nothing to do with statistical significance, so you must have meant significant in the sense of important.

(Just saw your rebuttal about "significance" below. Statistical significance is not how big a movement is, it is the chance that such a movement could be due to random chance. A very small movement could be statistically significant if your sample is big enough to show it's probably (e.g. 95% probably) not due to chance.)

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#13

Post by drawkward »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #7
mathgradthrow wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half a standard deviation is 8 IQ, and effect size has nothing to do with significance.

What are you talking about? Statistical significance is directly calculated from effect size and standard deviation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

The standard deviation referred to in the article is the effect size, and not the standard error of that estimate, which is what would be used to determine its significance.

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#14

Post by networkchad »

oldpersonintx wrote: post #5
sigmoid10 wrote: post #2

...in the elderly. And across all tasks it's only half a standard deviation, meaning the result is far from significant. There are lots of good studies on positive effects of exercise in all sorts of ages and populations, but this is not one of them. Edit: Jesus, this thread is proof than HN techies think they know math but actually have no clue about statistics. They are easy prey for this kind of journalism.

your response is proof once again, HN will go through any amount of mental gymnastics to avoid common sense on diet and exercise

I would love to know the waist size of the average HN user.

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#15

Post by [deleted] »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #2

...in the elderly. And across all tasks it's only half a standard deviation, meaning the result is far from significant. There are lots of good studies on positive effects of exercise in all sorts of ages and populations, but this is not one of them. Edit: Jesus, this thread is proof than HN techies think they know math but actually have no clue about statistics. They are easy prey for this kind of journalism.

[deleted]

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#16

Post by rfrey »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #7
mathgradthrow wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half a standard deviation is 8 IQ, and effect size has nothing to do with significance.

What are you talking about? Statistical significance is directly calculated from effect size and standard deviation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

> What are you talking about? Statistical significance is directly calculated from effect size and standard deviation.

But it's not about how big the effect is. It's how likely that the effect was or was not due to chance. A very small effect can be statistically significant. You missed "sample size" in your list above - a big sample size can help you show a small effect is probably not chance.

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#17

Post by drawkward »

rfrey wrote: post #12
sigmoid10 wrote: post #2

...in the elderly. And across all tasks it's only half a standard deviation, meaning the result is far from significant. There are lots of good studies on positive effects of exercise in all sorts of ages and populations, but this is not one of them. Edit: Jesus, this thread is proof than HN techies think they know math but actually have no clue about statistics. They are easy prey for this kind of journalism.

Half a standard deviation means going from the 50th percentile of IQ to the 69th. I'm assuming you didn't mean statistical significance since size of movement has nothing to do with statistical significance, so you must have meant significant in the sense of important. (Just saw your rebuttal about "significance" below. Statistical significance is not how big a movement is, it is the chance that such a movement could…

Or, they are confusing the way that standard deviation is used in the article as the size of the effect, with the standard error of that estimate, which would b3 used to determine the significance.

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#18

Post by sigmoid10 »

drawkward wrote: post #13
sigmoid10 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Statistical significance is directly calculated from effect size and standard deviation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

The standard deviation referred to in the article is the effect size, and not the standard error of that estimate, which is what would be used to determine its significance.

No, that's just wrong. See the original source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.t01-1...

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#19

Post by kortex »

> Maximal effects were found for tasks related to executive functions, (i.e., aspects of higher cognition principally associated with the functions of prefrontal cortex).

Oh good, exactly what I'm looking for. If only the executive dysfunction didn't mess with my ability to form any kind of stable exercise routine.

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#20

Post by drawkward »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #18
drawkward wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard deviation referred to in the article is the effect size, and not the standard error of that estimate, which is what would be used to determine its significance.

No, that's just wrong. See the original source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.t01-1...

Nice link to a paywalled source.
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