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Background: Sit-to-stand (STS) is a mechanically demanding task. Little is known about the energy expenditure (EE) and the perceived effort of patients with stroke during STS. Objectives: The objectives of our study were to assess the perceived effort and EE of patients with stroke when moving from STS and to determine whether an association between actual energy expended and patient-perceived effort exists. Method: This descriptive cross-sectional pilot study assessed participants’ EE and perceived effort during STS, with a triaxial accelerometer and the modified Borg scale (MBS), respectively. Results: The team screened 428 individuals for potential inclusion, with nine participants (n = 5 female, 55.5%) meeting the criteria for our pilot study. Participants had a mean age of 52.77 (standard deviation [SD] ± 11.33) years, the majority had a haemorrhagic stroke (n = 6, 66.6%) and left hemiplegia (n = 6, 66.6%), and they were assessed 9.11 (SD ± 6.57) days post-stroke. The mean EE during STS was 2.82 (SD ± 1.9) kCal. Most participants (n = 7, 77.77%) perceived STS as more than a ‘moderate’ effort on the MBS. The correlation coefficient between the metabolic equivalent of task (METs) and MBS was r = 0.34 (p = 0.38). Conclusion: Our study found a fair positive correlation between METs and MBS for patients with stroke during STS. Clinical implications: The increased EE shown can be a key point for rehabilitation to lessen the extent of EE during STS. Further research is warranted.

The aim was to evaluate the concurrent validity and reliability of the Resistance Intensity Scale for Exercise [RISE], which uses verbal descriptors, to quantify the intensity in velocity-based training with elastic bands. Eighteen trained volunteers performed parallel squats at maximum speed at 40%, 55%, 70%, and 85%1RM in four sessions, two for familiarization and two for reliability. Each set was stopped at a 10% intra-set velocity loss. Participants reported the perceived effort (easy-low-moderate-hard-maximal) at the first and last repetition. The concurrent validation was conducted with external load (i.e., mean propulsive velocity, weight, repetitions, and maximum power) and internal load parameters (i.e., heart rate). Participants' relative strength was calculated to assess its influence on the dependent variable. Acceptable concurrent validity and reliability (ICC>0.77, CV

The perception of effort is elementary for the self-regulation of exercise intensity in sports. The competence for rating perceived effort (RPE) seems to be related to physical and cognitive development. Children accurately rate perceived effort during incremental exercise tests when loads progressively increase, but it remains unclear how children perform when they participate in sports games, which are characterized by complex tasks with varying intensity profiles. The present study investigates children's competencies for rating perceived effort and producing predetermined intensities during soccer training. Twenty-five children aged 11–13 years performed two similar training sessions. In the first session, the children trained without intensity instructions and continuously rated their effort. In the second session, the children were instructed to produce predefined intensities. Before the first training session, executive functions were assessed by cognitive performance tests and a self-report measure. RPE correlated significantly with heart rate measures (R2 = 0.27, p

In order to minimize climate change it is important that people take up a sustainable lifestyle. Sustainable lifestyles call for pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) in several domains, such as in-home energy use, mobility, and consumption of food and goods. However, studies show that people often do not consistently behave pro-environmentally in all domains. In this study we investigated how a combination of personal motivation, and the difficulty and the perceived effort of a PEB, predicts the performance of PEBs in various domains, using a survey (n = 1,536). By means of Rasch analysis we identified the difficulty of 17 PEBs and estimated respondents’ pro-environmental motivations. In addition, we investigated if performance of certain PEBs increased the probability of performing other PEBs. This way we could identify for each level of motivation which behaviors respondents were (probably) performing and which behaviors they did not yet perform, but would be least effortful new behaviors. Furthermore, using a non-recursive structural equation model we investigated the relations between perceived effort, PEB performance, motivation, underlying traits, and demographics. Results showed a feedback loop between motivation and perceived effort: when respondents were motivated they perceived behaviors as less effortful and also lower perception of effort was related to higher motivation. Our results imply that people mainly perform PEBs that fit their level of pro-environmental motivation and that they are inclined to do the things of which they can justify the effort they need to invest. This amount of effort seems quite similar for people: no one wants to invest too much effort, but people highly differ in how effortful they assess different behaviors. Our study thus indicates that rationalizations play a key role. Encouraging people to embrace more sustainable lifestyles may involve step-by-step increases in PEB performance. We propose that people should be encouraged to perform behaviors that are closest to their current motivation level in order for them to progress from performing easy to more difficult PEBs.

The aim of this study was to analyse and quantify the acute effects of competition on several performance factors in young female basketball players, between playing positions. To this end, 37 regional league players (17.21 ± 0.44 years) performed various tests to measure the rate of perceived of effort, sprint times and jump capacity immediately pre-match (T1), at half-time (T2) and post-match (T3). Tests included measuring perceived effort (RPE), sprinting for 20 metres based on time across 10 m and 20 m and performance of countermovement jumps (CMJ). For subsequent analysis, the sample was divided into three playing positions: guards (n=11), forwards (n=15) and centres (n=11). Associated with the expected increases of RPE (from 0.3-0.5 to 7.1-7.3), results showed very likely negative effects with performance decreased from T1 to T3 measures in 20 m (3.51% for guards) and in CMJ (13.7% for forwards). We found likely and very likely negative effects between T1 and T2 in all positions but we did not between T2 and T3 in CMJ. These findings highlight the need to individualise fitness training, taking into account the match needs and demands of the different playing positions in order to minimise the effects of match fatigue and accelerate post-match recovery.

There has been a rapid increase in the use of wearable technology-based physical activity trackers. Most of these physical activity trackers include tracking and displaying the individual's heart rate (HR). There is little known about how HR monitoring influences the perception of exertion and attention allocation. Shifting attentional focus toward the body (association), such as monitoring HR, instead of environmental stimuli (dissociation) may increase one's perceived level of exertion. The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of HR monitoring on ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) and attention allocation during an exertive stepping task in individuals of varying fitness levels. The YMCA stepping task normative values determined fitness levels. For the experimental condition, participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions (i.e., HR monitoring or control) and completed a stepping task with a weighted vest at 20% of their bodyweight. HR, RPE, and attention allocation were collected at 30-s intervals. Performing the stepping task resulted in a gradual increase of HR and RPE along with a shift from dissociative to associative attention across all conditions. Monitoring one's HR during the task resulted in more dissociative attention allocation, however, no RPE differences were reported between the two conditions. Unfit individuals reported lower levels of RPE during the first time point compared to fit individuals despite having higher HR throughout the task. The results of this study have relevance for applied practitioners implementing physical activity interventions with individuals who monitor their HR.

Food waste can be observed in the entire food industry, and it negatively impacts the social, environmental and economic spheres. This study aims to identify the predictive factors for such behavior, specifically those relating the propensity to procrastinate, and the “food control” and “perceived effort” variables as mediators of food waste behavior. To this end, data were collected by way of an online survey, resulting in a consistent final sample of 279 respondents, with the hypotheses being analyzed by structural equation modeling. As the key results of this study, procrastination was not significant for explaining food waste behavior, while food control reduces perceived effort. This study has also clarified that greater, intuitive control is counterproductive. As for its contributions to management, the urgent need to use booklets and training to disseminate food control techniques and access to information on the shelf life of food products stands out.

This study was aimed at analysing and quantifying relevant effects of competition on performance factors in female basketball players (16.45±0.92 years) with reference to age (under-16 and under-18) and playing positions: guards (n=19), forwards (n=27) and centres (n=22). Participants completed tests to measure jump capacity (countermovement jump-CMJ) and sprint times (10 m and 20 m) at three moments: just before the match (T1), at half-time and after the match (T3). Associated with the increases of perceived effort, results showed “very likely” negative effects with performance decreased from T1-T3 in 20 m (4.03% and 3.51% for guards u-16 and u-18, respectively) and CMJ (15.17% and 13.7% for guards u-16 and forwards u-18, respectively). We only found a “large” ES in T2-T3 in guards u-16 in CMJ. Findings highlight the necessity to customize training, considering requirements and demands of different ages and playing positions to decrease the impact of fatigue after match.

This study was aimed at analysing and quantifying relevant effects of competition on performance factors in female basketball players (16.45±0.92 years) with reference to age (under-16 and under-18) and playing positions: guards (n=19), forwards (n=27) and centres (n=22). Participants completed tests to measure jump capacity (countermovement jump-CMJ) and sprint times (10 m and 20 m) at three moments: just before the match (T1), at half-time and after the match (T3). Associated with the increases of perceived effort, results showed “very likely” negative effects with performance decreased from T1-T3 in 20 m (4.03% and 3.51% for guards u-16 and u-18, respectively) and CMJ (15.17% and 13.7% for guards u-16 and forwards u-18, respectively). We only found a “large” ES in T2-T3 in guards u-16 in CMJ. Findings highlight the necessity to customize training, considering requirements and demands of different ages and playing positions to decrease the impact of fatigue after match.

Ideally, pro-environmental consumer behavior leads to a lower impact on the environment. However, due to negative behavioral spillovers environmentally friendly behavior could lead to an overall higher environmental impact if subsequent environmentally unfriendly behavior occurs. In this exploratory interview study we focused on two pathways leading to negative spillover: a psychological path (perceived effort, moral licensing) and an economic path (rebound effects). We wanted to gain insight into people’s motivations to behave environmentally unfriendly and to explore people’s level of awareness of both pathways. Our results indicate that pro-environmental behaviors that are associated with higher effort are performed less frequently, and that when people do not perform these behaviors they associate them with higher effort levels. When people perceive behaviors as more effortful they increasingly seem to use arguments to motivate and rationalize why performing the behavior is difficult or impossible. Moreover, we found that although some people can imagine that moral licensing and rebound effects could occur and can provide examples from their own lives, most people assess these concepts as not rational. People seem unaware of the relation between a first pro-environmental behavior (PEB) and a subsequent behavior, and therefore inconsistencies in behavior go unnoticed. As people are good at rationalizing why they do not perform specific PEBs, they in general feel satisfied with their own pro-environmental actions. In order to discourage negative spillovers, we describe a number of approaches and research ideas aimed at taking away the grounds for rationalization.

Several studies have investigated the influence of perceiving colors on affective outcomes and/or performance. However, the effects of seeing colors on self-selected behaviors have received little attention from physiologists and psychologists. Therefore, the present study aimed at examining whether exposure to green and red environments could influence affective judgments, perception of effort, heart rate, and gait speeds when walking and running at a self-selected pace. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions: Green, red, or white (neutral) environment. The experimental task consisted in a 20-min trial of either walking (Study 1) or running (Study 2) at the most comfortable speed on a treadmill surrounded by three large HD TV screens displaying specific properties of the studied colors. Study 1 revealed that walking in a green environment induced a significant reduction in heart rate values as compared to the red and white conditions although no differences in gait speed were found. This corroborates the calming and relaxing effect of green on the human organism. Study 2 showed that running in a green environment was associated with an increased level of perceived exertion at similar speeds (compared to other color conditions), while exposure to red induced a significant decrease in the level of tension. In both studies, the preferred gait speed was not affected by the colored environment which is discussed in relation to the energy-conservation principle. Furthermore, both studies showed that performing a 20-min walk or run at preferred pace presented beneficial mood changes. Implications of the effects of self-selected exercise under colored environments on human functioning are addressed in the discussion.

Introduction: There is conflicting data at sea-level to suggest that Paced Breathing (PB) versus Spontaneous Breathing (SB) during short-term Heart Rate Variability (HRV) measurement improves data reliability. Aim: This study sought to examine the effects of SB versus PB on HRV, at High Altitude (HA). Materials and Methods: This was a prospective observational study on thirty healthy adult men who were investigated over nine days at altitudes of 800-4107 m. Cardiac inter-beat interval data were measured over 55 seconds, twice daily, using an ithlete finger sensor linked to a mobile phone to generate a HRV score. Agreements in the paired (SB vs PB) HRV scores were examined using paired t-tests, correlation coefficients and F-Testing. A factorial repeated measures ANOVA was used to examine the main effect of altitude and breathing method on the paired differences in HRV scores. Results: HA led to a significant reduction in SpO2 and increase in Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) Scores. HRV scores (511 paired scores) were consistently higher with PB versus SB (mean difference +6.0; 96.1% within 95% agreement limit), though the variance was lower (F=1.2; p=0.04) and the scores strongly correlated (r=0.78; p

This study examined the motivational determinants of athletes perceived effort in football considering the four-stage motivational sequence at the contextual level proposed by Hierarchical Model of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: task-involving climate, basic psychological needs, self-determined motivation (SDM), and perceived effort. Additionally, SEM multi-group analysis across different age-groups (U15, U17, U19, and U21 years) and serial mediation of basic psychological needs (BPNs) and SDM on the task-involving motivational climate and the perceived effort were also analyzed. Two independent samples of male football athletes (N = 403, N = 403), aged 13–20 years were enrolled in this study. The results support the adequacy of the structural model in explaining the perceived effort of football atheltes in all samples under analysis, and was invariant across U17, U19, and U21. However, it was not invariant across U15 and U17, U19 and U21. Furthermore, results from the serial mediation showed significant indirect effects in all samples, supporting self-determination theoretical assumptions, reinforcing the importance of BPNs satisfaction and behavioral regulation in the relation in analysis. The results show that when coaches promote a task-involving climate, the BPNs satisfaction of athletes improves. This climate will facilitate the regulation of their behaviors toward more autonomous forms of motivation, with positive outcomes in the athletes perceived effort.

Background: Music listening is wide-spread in amateur sports. Ergometer exercise is one such activity which is often performed with loud music.Aim and Hypotheses: We investigated the effects of electronic music at different intensity levels on ergometer performance (physical performance, force on the pedal, pedaling frequency), perceived fatigue and heart rate in healthy adults. We assumed that higher sound intensity levels are associated with greater ergometer performance and less perceived effort, particularly for untrained individuals.Methods: Groups of high trained and low trained healthy males (N = 40; age = 25.25 years; SD = 3.89 years) were tested individually on an ergometer while electronic dance music was played at 0, 65, 75, and 85 dB. Participants assessed their music experience during the experiment.Results: Majorities of participants rated the music as not too loud (65%), motivating (77.50%), appropriate for this sports exercise (90%), and having the right tempo (67.50%). Participants noticed changes in the acoustical environment with increasing intensity levels, but no further effects on any of the physical or other subjective measures were found for neither of the groups. Therefore, the main hypothesis must be rejected.Discussion: These findings suggest that high loudness levels do not positively influence ergometer performance. The high acceptance of loud music and perceived appropriateness could be based on erroneous beliefs or stereotypes. Reasons for the widespread use of loud music in fitness sports needs further investigation. Reducing loudness during fitness exercise may not compromise physical performance or perceived effort.

El propósito de este trabajo fue conocer la repercusión sobre los aspectos fisiológicos y técnicos de tres situaciones diferentes de juegos en espacios reducidos (JR) en jóvenes jugadores de fútbol. Las diferentes situaciones estudiadas fueron 3 vs 3, 4 vs 4 y 5 vs 5 en un espacio de 30x30, donde participaron 10 jugadores jóvenes de fútbol varones (edad 9.3 ± 0.7 años; altura 138.5 ± 10.5 cm y peso de 41.9 ± 6 kg y una experiencia de 2.2 ± 1.4 años). Las acciones técnicas se cuantificaron a partir de las grabaciones en vídeo y la respuesta fisiológica fue medida a través de la frecuencia cardíaca (%Fcmed y %Fcmáx) y de la percepción subjetiva del esfuerzo (PSE). Los resultados del análisis de varianza (ANOVA) reflejan diferencias significativas en las siguientes variables: pases buenos, pases malos, %Fcmed, %Fcmáx, tiempo entre 70-79 % y > 90 %Fcmáx y PSE. Los resultados encontrados ponen de relieve que la manipulación de la densidad en las tareas tiene efectos a diferentes niveles y por tanto debe ser tenido en cuenta por parte de los técnicos deportivos que trabajan con jugadores jóvenes a la hora de diseñar tareas de entrenamiento. La conclusión principal es que la utilización del formato 3 vs 3 parece ser más demandante tanto a nivel técnico como cardíaco. Abstract The purpose of this research was to find out the impact of the physiological and technical aspects of three different situations of small-sided games (SSG) on young football players. The different situations considered were 3 vs 3, 4 vs 4 and 5 vs 5 in a space of 30x30 m, implemented by 10 young male football players (age 9.3 ± 0.7; height 138.5 ± 10.5 cm, weight 41.9 ± 6 kg and 2.2 ± 1.4 years' experience). The technical actions were quantified out of video recordings and the physiological performance of the exercise was measured through the heart rate (%Fcmed and %Fcpico), and the subject perception of effort (PSE). The results of variance analysis (ANOVA) show significant differences in the following variables: good passes, bad passes, average FC, maximum FC; time 70-79% and between > 90% HRmáx and PSE. The results point out that the manipulation of the density of the tasks has effects on different levels and must therefore be taken into account by the coaches that work with young players when it comes to designing training tasks. The main conclusion is that the use of the 3 vs 3 format seems more demanding both for technical purposes and aerobic performance.

The aim of the following study was to examine the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC), executive functions (EFs) and perceived effort (PE) after completing a work-related task in quiet and in noise in employees with aided hearing impairment (HI) and normal hearing. The study sample consisted of 20 hearing-impaired and 20 normally hearing participants. Measures of hearing ability, WMC and EFs were tested prior to performing a work-related task in quiet and in simulated traffic noise. PE of the work-related task was also measured. Analysis of variance was used to analyze within- and between-group differences in cognitive skills, performance on the work-related task and PE. The presence of noise yielded a significantly higher PE for both groups. However, no significant group differences were observed in WMC, EFs, PE and performance in the work-related task. Interestingly, significant negative correlations were only found between PE in the noise condition and the ability to update information for both groups. In summary, noise generates a significantly higher PE and brings explicit processing capacity into play, irrespective of hearing. This suggest that increased PE involves other factors such as type of task that is to be performed, performance in the cognitive skill required solving the task at hand and whether noise is present. We therefore suggest that special consideration in hearing care should be made to the individual′s prerequisites on these factors in the labor market.

Listening to degraded speech can be challenging and requires a continuous investment of cognitive resources, which is more challenging for those with hearing loss. However, while alpha power (8-12 Hz) and pupil dilation have been suggested as objective correlates of listening effort, it is not clear whether they assess the same cognitive processes involved, or other sensory and/or neurophysiological mechanisms that are associated with the task. Therefore, the aim of this study is to compare alpha power and pupil dilation during a sentence recognition task in 15 randomized levels of noise (-7dB to +7dB SNR) using highly intelligible (16 channel vocoded) and moderately intelligible (6 channel vocoded) speech. Twenty young normal hearing adults participated in the study; however, due to extraneous noise, data from 16 (10 females, 6 males; aged 19-28 years) was used in the EEG analysis and 10 in the pupil analysis. Behavioral testing of perceived effort and speech performance was assessed at 3 fixed SNRs per participant and was comparable to sentence recognition performance assessed in the physiological test session for both 16- and 6-channel vocoded sentences. Results showed a significant interaction between channel vocoding for both the alpha power and the pupil size changes. While both measures significantly decreased with more positive SNRs for the 16-channel vocoding, this was not observed with the 6-channel vocoding. The results of this study suggest that these measures may encode different processes involved in speech perception, which show similar trends for highly intelligible speech, but diverge for more spectrally degraded speech. The results to date suggest that these objective correlates of listening effort, and the cognitive processes involved in listening effort, are not yet sufficiently well understood to be used within a clinical setting.