A Comparative Analysis of Stroop Reaction Times Between Male and Female Collegiate Athletes and Non-Athletes in the Young Adult Population (2024)

Undergraduate: Ashton Owen

Faculty Advisor: Johna Register-Mihalik
Department: Exercise and Sports Science

---

Understanding the impact experience in organized sport, specific to females and males, has on cognitive function can inform use of these assessments in concussion management. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of athletic history, examined in males and females separately, on complex reaction time metrics. This was a cross-sectional laboratory-based study that included 75 young adults (52 females and 23 males). All participants completed four total assessments of reaction time tasks (two congruent Stroop and two incongruent Stroop) as part of a larger cognitive assessment batter. Descriptive statistics were computed for all demographics and outcome variables of interest (reaction time correct for all four tasks). T-tests were run comparing these four outcomes between athletes and non-athletes, separately for males and females. In females and males, there were no statistically significant differences between athletes and non-athletes for any task (p>0.05). However, in males, the effect size for all comparisons was greater for each comparison, with 2 of 4 outcomes illustrating moderate effects sizes (>0.5) while none of the female comparisons illustrated an effect size over 0.4. These findings indicate the need for continued exploration of sex and potentially sport-specific outcomes of reaction time metrics to further inform their clinical use.