Creativity is a high-level cognitive activity which can be affected by acute aerobic exercise. This paper aims to determine how acute aerobic exercise intensities may influence aspects of divergent and convergent creative thinking. In this regard, to give an insight into the results, the predictions of the transient hypofrontality thesis and the strength model of self-control have been taken into consideration. 93 healthy male college students (age = 21.18 ±1.73 years) were randomly assigned to anaerobic threshold intensity (%85 HRmax, n = 31), low intensity (%60 HRmax, n = 31), and control (n = 31) groups. Participants performed divergent (Alternate Uses Task) and convergent (Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices Test) creative thinking tasks before, during, and after cessation of two anaerobic threshold and low intensities and control conditions. For the divergent creative thinking, flexibility and fluency performances during and after cessation of exercise in anaerobic threshold and low-intensity groups were improved in comparison to the control group. These results were consistent with the transient hypofrontality thesis and inconsistent with the strength model of self-control predictions. In contrast, the performance of convergent creative thinking was relatively stable during and after cessation of exercise in anaerobic threshold and low-intensity groups that was inconsistent with both the transient hypofrontality thesis and the strength model of self-control predictions. The findings suggest that theoretical predictions of transient hypofrontality thesis are more adaptable with literature than the strength model of self-control to consider the exercise-creative processes relationship and further study of the issue would be of interest.
