Estimativas temporais de presidiários brasileiros

Abstract

Time estimates are related to an internal biological clock that is influenced by cognitive (attention and memory) and emotional processes. Stressful situations such as isolation and confinement result in temporal distortions. However, no studies were found on the perception of time in the prison population. In this sense, the present project aimed to verify the relationship between temporal estimates in retrospective and prospective tasks, mood states (anxiety, depression, and stress), and different cognitive domains (attention, executive functions, memory, language, visuospatial skills, and orientation) with the length of incarceration in a sample of Brazilian prisoners. A total of 57 prisoners (42 men) from a penitentiary in the interior of Minas Gerais, with an average age of 33 years (SD = 6.20), answered a sociodemographic questionnaire, a self-report instrument about their mood state (DASS-21), a neuropsychological screening instrument (MoCA), and temporal estimation tasks (BEST). The results revealed that almost half of the sample had high levels of depression and anxiety (moderate to very severe), and that the worst performance was observed in the cognitive tasks of memory, language, and abstraction. In addition, temporal overestimation was observed in most BEST tasks, indicating that time passed more slowly for prisoners. Temporal overestimation was negatively correlated with general cognitive performance; however, no relationship was observed with the length of incarceration. These findings suggest that deprivation of liberty affects temporal estimates, but this effect is limited and related to the cognitive ability and mood states of prisoners, and is not modulated by the length of incarceration.