## 4 Discussion  
Few studies have investigated the implementation of VR in healthy young individuals. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that has assessed cognitive flexibility and selective attention using this technology. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of VR usage which would deliver additional benefits to a traditional exercise protocol with respect to assessing cognitive flexibility and selective attention. The main results of the present study were as follows: (1) there was a significant interaction effect between time and condition for Wisconsin_PEC, (2) there was a significant time effect for WCST in both groups, (3) there was a significant time effect for all Stroop outcomes in GE; however, non-significant intra-group changes were observed in CON for Stroop_C. In comparing our results to the WCST, the previous studies confirmed that exercise may be helpful in maintaining executive functions and behavioral performance levels [48]. In addition, the study confirmed that moderate exercise improves brain efficiency for executive functions in young adults. In the current study, a significant time effect for WCST in both groups was observed which was in agreement with previous studies using moderate-intensity protocols [49; 50]. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline  & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Pre**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Post**} & & \\ \cline{2-9}  & **GE** & **CON** & **GE** & **CON** & \(\boldsymbol{p}\)****a** & **F** & \(\boldsymbol{p}\)****b** & \(\boldsymbol{\eta}^{2}_{\text{P}}\) \\ \hline WCST\_EC & 20.1 & 14.9 & 13.3 & 9.27 & 0.420 & 0.215 & 0.647 & 0.008 \\  & (9.48) & (6.64) & (7.47) & (3.33) & & & & & \\ WCST\_PEC & 12.5 & 9.60 & 8.67 & 6.47 & 0.402 & 4.590 & 0.041 * & 0.141 \\  & (5.50) & (3.78) & (3.31) & (1.73) & & & & & \\ WCST\_NPEC & 7.60 & 5.27 & 4.60 & 2.80 & & & & & \\  & (5.28) & (3.92) & (4.69) & (2.04) & 0.640 & 0.09 & 0.761 & 0.003 \\ Stroop\_C & 1022 & 986 (201) & 839 (170) & 887 (179) & 0.913 & 1.40 & 0.247 & 0.048 \\ Stroop\_IC & 1124 & 1104 & 947 (149) & 951 (163) & 0.989 & 0.352 & 0.558 & 0.012 \\ \hline \multicolumn{9}{l}{All data are reported as mean (SD). WCST: Wisconsin Card Sorting Task; EC: total number of errors; PEC: conservative errors; NPE: non-perseervative errors; symbols represent significant differences at \(p<0.05\). \(p\)****a** = inter-group differences after treatment using repeated measures ANOVA followed by [PERSON]’s post-hoc; \(p\)****b** = between-groups differences.} \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: WCST and Stroop test changes as a result of 30 min exercise protocol with or without superimposed VR. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline  & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**GE**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**CON**} \\ \cline{2-9}  & \(\boldsymbol{p}\) & **Mean Difference** & **Lower** & **Upper** & \(\boldsymbol{p}\) & **Mean Difference** & **Lower** & **Upper** \\ \hline Wisconsin\_EC & 0.006 * & 6.80 & 2.29 & 11.31 & 0.002 * & 5.60 & 2.36 & 8.84 \\ Wisconsin\_PEC & 0.009 * & 3.80 & 11.10 & 6.49 & 0.001 * & 3.13 & 1.43 & 4.83 \\ Wisconsin\_NPEC & 0.047 * & 3.00 & 0.040 & 5.96 & 0.035 * & 2.47 & 0.20 & 4.73 \\ Stroop\_C & 0.002 * & 183.07 & 76.32 & 289.81 & 0.071 & 99.00 & \(-\)97.10 & 207.71 \\ Stroop\_IC & \(<\) 0.001 * & 176.87 & 134.31 & 219.42 & \(<\) 0.001* & 152.73 & 76.57 & 228.90 \\ \hline \multicolumn{9}{l}{WCST: Wisconsin Card Sorting Task; EC: total number of errors; PEC: conservative errors; NPE: non-perseervative errors; symbols represent significant differences at \(p<0.05\). * = between-groups differences.} \\ \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Intra group differences in WCST and Stroop as a response to a 30 min exercise protocol with or without superimposed VR. Further studies confirmed that a single session of low-volume, supramaximal interval exercise significantly increases executive function [51]. In addition, an acute bout of exercise (cycling at moderate intensity) can improve performance on an executive function task [52; 53].