Perceção do tempo

: estimação do tempo em músicos profissionais

Abstract

This study investigated prospective time differences of verbal estimations between professional musicians and non-musicians for equal durations. It was expected that professional musicians had a better performance. Sixteen professional musicians and 16 non-musicians with little to no contact with music throughout their lives participated in this study. A behavioral task computed to measure time estimation precision was used, through auditory modality, as well as the amount of underestimations and overestimations. The temporal task was implemented together with a non-temporal task to avoid the effects of internal count of the participants. To explore the results, a statistical analysis was held via means of comparisons and relations between variables. The differences between the two groups were statistically significant and showed that professional musicians were more accurate estimating time intervals than non-musicians. The largest amount of temporal errors was due to underestimations both in musicians and non-musicians and not overestimations. This results support previous findings concerning functional and structural brain differences between musicians and non-musicians as well as studies reporting time passing faster during involvement with a task. Intensive music training throughout life can improve time estimation capability, allowing a better performance in time management and daily life organization.

Date of Award	2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Carlos Fernandes da Silva (Supervisor) & Sandra Soares (Co-Supervisor)