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Visual memory in musicians and non-musicians.
Rodrigues, Ana Carolina; Loureiro, Maurício; Caramelli, Paulo.
Afiliação
  • Rodrigues AC; Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Federal University of Minas Gerais Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
  • Loureiro M; Department of Instruments and Singing, School of Music, Federal University of Minas Gerais Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
  • Caramelli P; Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology Research Group, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Minas Gerais Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Front Hum Neurosci ; 8: 424, 2014.
Article em En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-25018722
Many investigations have reported structural, functional, and cognitive changes in the brains of musicians, which occur as a result of many years of musical practice. We aimed to investigate if intensive, long-term musical practice is associated with improved visual memory ability. Musicians and non-musicians, who were comparable in age, gender, and education, were submitted to a visual memory test. The test consisted of the presentation of four sets of stimuli, each one containing eight figures to be memorized. Each set was followed by individual figures and the subject was required to indicate if each figure was or was not present in the memorized set, by pressing the corresponding keys. We divided the test in two parts, in which the stimuli had greater or reduced semantic coding. Overall, musicians showed better performance on reaction times, but not on accuracy. An additional analysis revealed no significant interaction between group and any part of the test in the prediction of the outcomes. When simple reaction time was included as covariate, no significant difference between groups was found on reaction times. In the group of musicians, we found some significant correlations between variables related to musical practice and performance in the visual memory test. In summary, our data provide no evidence of enhanced visual memory ability in musicians, since there was no difference in accuracy between groups. Our results suggest that performance of musicians in the visual memory test may be associated with better sensorimotor integration, since although they have presented shorter reaction times, such effect disappeared when taken in consideration the simple reaction time test. However, given existing evidence of associations between simple reaction time and cognitive function, their performance in the visual memory test could also be related to enhanced visual attention ability, as has been suggested by previous studies, but this hypothesis deserves more investigation.
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Texto completo: 1 Coleções: 01-internacional Base de dados: MEDLINE Tipo de estudo: Prognostic_studies Idioma: En Revista: Front Hum Neurosci Ano de publicação: 2014 Tipo de documento: Article País de afiliação: Brasil País de publicação: Suíça

Texto completo: 1 Coleções: 01-internacional Base de dados: MEDLINE Tipo de estudo: Prognostic_studies Idioma: En Revista: Front Hum Neurosci Ano de publicação: 2014 Tipo de documento: Article País de afiliação: Brasil País de publicação: Suíça