Effects of hedonic value and structural properties of musical stimuli on the estimation of time and temporal memory

• Grant number: 16/03416-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2016
• End date: May 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Jose Lino Oliveira Bueno
• Grantee: Laísa Francielle Mariano Ramazzotto
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Emotion generated by music interferes in subjective time. Therefore, time can be distorted seeming shorter or longer than it really is in different contexts. The main models that try to explain time distortion include the processes of memory and attention. Cocenas-Silva, Bueno and Droit-Volet (2012) showed that the accuracy of temporal memory was bigger when the standard duration of the visual stimuli was learned in a disagreeable context compared to a neutral one and the standard stimuli was better codified and recalled 24 hours later, supporting the hypothesis of memory consolidation. The differences in the structuring of a piece of music made by the listener also change their subjective time (Fraisse, 1967). The aim of this paper is to examine whether there are differences in the subjective perception of time experienced among participants previously submitted to musical stimuli of different hedonic values and with different levels of structuration during the hearing; subjective time perception will also be evaluated with tests carried out on short and long time after this previous exposure. Ninety-four students will be divided into four groups. Participants of two of these groups will be submitted to unpleasant musical stimuli, but subdivided according to different numbers of exposures; participants in the other two groups will be submitted to stimuli with neutral hedonic value and also subdivided according to different numbers of exposures. The hedonic value effect and structuring effect on subjective time will be examined with a new exposure of the musical stimuli to be done 15 minutes and 24 hours after the previous experience in order to check the temporal memory consolidation process.