Kurze Übungseinheiten verbessern die sozial-kognitiven Fähigkeiten der Kinder, die für soziale Interaktionen wie das Erkennen der Emotionen anderer Menschen und das Einfühlen in sie notwendig sind

>The researchers investigated how sport influenced social cognition in 100 children between the ages of 9 and 13 in the short term. To this end, they formed three groups. The first group of schoolchildren carried out 20 minutes of playful sports activities involving cooperation. This means that the task could only be accomplished with the help of others. The second group also exercised for 20 minutes. The activity was again playful, but without any cooperation, i.e. it could be completed alone. A third control group watched a sports documentary during the set time window and was thus not exposed to any physical exertion.
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>The researchers conducted a series of tests both before and immediately after the exercise. First, they tested the children’s ability to recognize emotions in a computer test. The children were asked to match pictures of adults to the appropriate emotion. The choices were anger, fear and joy. Their reaction speed and accuracy were recorded.
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>The children who completed the exercise activity on their own subsequently showed improved emotion recognition. In the group that performed the exercise activity involving cooperation, however, there was no improvement in social cognition compared to the control group that had watched the sports documentary.

[Acute Effect of Exercise with and Without Cooperative Activities on Emotion Recognition in Preadolescent Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial – Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise](https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/abstract/9900/acute_effect_of_exercise_with_and_without.925.aspx)