SINGING AND COUNTING IMPROVE THE TIMING OF LONG INTERVALS

Abstract

This article analyzes sequences of temporal intervals produced by a series of finger taps. The dependent variables of interest are the mean produced intervals (MPI), and their variability (SD). Six target intervals (3 to 18 s) and 4 experimental conditions for keeping track of time were studied: No counting between the taps, counting numbers, singing a well-known song and singing a song selected by the participant. The lowest accuracy was observed in the no- counting condition, where both the deviations from the targets and the SD were the largest. With the longer intervals (15 and 18 s), the deviation from the target in the well-known song condition was significantly smaller than in the no- counting and number-counting conditions. The mean individual Weber fraction passes from 0.14 when counting was prohibited, to 0.07 with the explicit counting, to 0.06 and 0.05 when singing. Moreover, the coefficient of variation (CV=SD/MPI) in the no-counting condition was not constant.