While it’s been thought that doing multiple activities may worsen performance, researchers from the University of Rochester found that for some, walking can improve cognitive performance tasks.

Utilizing the Mobile Brain/Body Imaging system (MoBI), the investigators monitored the brain activity, kinematics, and behavior of 26 normal, healthy 18 to 30 year-olds. The participants were instructed to click a button each time an image appeared. First they did the activity with everyone sitting. Then the participants were to do the activity while walking on a treadmill.

As expected, some people’s performance worsened when they were to perform the activity while walking. However, about half of them improved their performance while walking. Using EEG data, they found that for those who improved their performance experienced certain frontal brain activities not found in those who did worse.

However, there is no prediction as to the type of activities that people can benefit from walking or who specifically can benefit.

The study does bring certain questions to light including students who fidget during tasks requiring intense focusing and whether certain elderly people do better because of their activities.

Either way, when in doubt, do some walking.

The authors published their findings in the journal, Cerebral Cortex.

E Patelaki et al. Young adults who improve performance during dual-task walking show more flexible reallocation of cognitive resources: a mobile brain-body imaging (MoBI) study. Cerebral Cortex (2022).  DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhac227