Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

It is not clear how cheering chants affect time perception which can be critical for sport performance. Here we measuredthe performance participants estimated second-order length of duration using a conventional psychophysical task. In thecontrol condition, five participants were required to produce 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds of target durations by pressing a button ina gymnasium where nobody except for experimenters came in. In the testing condition, a group of cheerleaders appearedand chanted for 20 seconds after each block. The participants were required to complete otherwise the same task as thecontrol condition. The order of conditions was counterbalanced. The percentages of errors of estimated time was 4.229.58,-24.318.81, -24.9117.06, -22.4921.83 for 1, 3, 5 and 10 second of target durations in the control condition. Those valueswere 16.1322.54, -10.7716.22, -11.878.95 and -12.385.74 in the testing condition. In summary, the chants increased theduration participants produced.