Percepção de notas musicais após ingestão moderada de etanol por mulheres e homens

Abstract

Our objective was to evaluate in young adult women and men the consequences of moderate ethanol intake on the perception of the musical notes D, F, and A. Blood alcohol concentrations were measured with a breathalyzer apparatus. The study included 20 men and 20 women 18-30 years old. These were not musicians, not drug users, or consumers of other toxic substances, they were healthy, moderate drinkers of alcohol and had no personal or family history of drug abuse. The same volunteers were tested under two conditions: experimental, with ethanol ingestion, and control, with a placebo drink ingestion. In both conditions, drinks were diluted with passion fruit juice at a ratio of 1:3. The amount of ingested alcohol for each participant was calculated based on previous studies, taking into account age, weight, percent H2O body weight and height. The musical notes were randomly presented to each participant in three blocks of 20 pairs of stimuli, one block for each note used as test stimulus. The task of each participant was to discriminate the test stimulus from one (of two possible) distracters. Prior to each experimental session the test stimulus was presented five consecutive times. Correct responses were grouped by gender and a 2x2 X2 test for independent samples was used for the two conditions: alcohol ingestion (ingestion and no ingestion) and gender of participants (women and men), for each of the three musical notes. Adherence X2 tests were also used to assess to these variables individually. It found significant differences on the musical note F for comparisons between men and women without ethanol ingestion and between experimental and control conditions for men. It found too significant differences between men and women after drinking alcohol and in women before and after ingestion, on the musical note D. Without distinction of sex of the participants were found significant differences in all the musical notes used. Thus, the results found suggest that ingestion of ethanol alters the perception of musical notes and differently between women and men.