Interações entre música, emoções e desempenho matemático: análise de fatores psicofisiológicos com acadêmicos de licenciatura em matemática

Abstract

Among the factors that explain low performance in mathematics is the feeling of tension and fear when faced with numerical situations, a construct outlined in the literature as Mathematical Anxiety (MA). Considering its predictors, we developed this thesis with the objective of proposing a cognitive-behavioral intervention model with listening to relaxing music for Emotional Regulation and possible modulation of the emotional state of undergraduate mathematics students. The interaction between music and emotions can be understood in light of the Neurovisceral Integration Model that explains the intracorporeal relationship, such as the prefrontal cortex-heart integration, examined from the cardiac vagal tone and indexed by Heart Rate Variability indexes. This thesis was organized in the multipaper format (multiple articles), with the first article describing a theoretical-explanatory proposal discussing how music influences MA, with the presentation of neural areas involved in the underlying manifestations of MA and emotional auditory processing, considering HRV as an index of such manifestations. In the second article, we provide a translated version of the ML rating scale, thus enabling the mapping of the population with high ML, eligible for intervention models. Therefore, we present the process of translation, cross-cultural adaptation and construct validation of the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale: short version (MARS-SV), a ML scale widely used internationally, but without translation into Portuguese. In the third paper, an experimental study was developed, consisting of the application of a mathematical and executive functions test, while we recorded the heart rate of a group of undergraduate mathematics students (n = 26), subjected to experimental, control and intervention conditions, in a crossover experimental design within subjects, with experimental activities pre and post intervention. The grouping, for statistical analysis purposes, occurred from the application of the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale. The results indicate the evocation of emotional states when listening to relaxing music, potentially effective in mitigating the effects of MA, manifested in the activation of pain and fear networks, with involvement mainly of the Insula and Amygdala, among other structures of the limbic and paralimbic systems, which are also influenced by internal characteristics of tonal music, played on keyboard or string instruments at a range of 60 to 80 bpm. Listening to relaxing music influenced the mathematical performance of students so that the performance scores were significantly higher than those of the pre-intervention moment. It is inferred that the improvement in performance comes from emotional conditions favorable to facing mathematical activities, since a significant improvement in negative affects associated with an increase in the complexity of HRV was recorded immediately before the mathematical task in the experimental intervention condition. It is concluded that the development of this work provides the academic community with positive perspectives for the teaching and learning of mathematics, since, theoretically, an explanatory model of the influence of music on AM was proposed, which from this production onwards has a specific instrument for classifying the population affected by its manifestations, as well as the viability of implementing auditory resources in the elementary and/or university school context.