Investigating the influence of music training on verbal memory

Previous research has shown that musical training is associated with enhanced verbal memory. The current study investigated the generality of this association by presenting undergraduates who had received musical training (n = 20) and undergraduates with no formal music training (n = 20) with four types of word list; high visual imagery, high auditory imagery, high tactile imagery, and abstract. Those who had received music training showed enhanced memory for all word lists, suggesting that music training leads to a general enhancement in verbal memory that is not restricted to specific types of words (e.g., those invoking auditory imagery). The findings support previous research in showing that music training enhances cognitive skills beyond those that are specific to the domain of music. The possible cognitive and neural factors underpinning this effect are discussed

Story contexts increase susceptibility to the DRM illusion in 5-year-olds.

False recognition in children aged 5, 8, and 11 years was investigated using the standard version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) procedure and an alternative version in which the DRM stimuli were embedded in stories designed to emphasize their overall theme. Relative to the 8- and 11-year-olds, the 5-year-olds falsely recognized fewer critical lures when the DRM stimuli were presented in lists, but falsely recognized more critical lures when the stimuli were presented in stories. Levels of false recognition in the 8- and 11-year-olds were not affected by study format. We argue that the story context enhanced the ability of the 5-year-olds to make inferences based on the theme of the DRM stimuli. The 5-year-olds then showed higher levels of false recognition than the older children owing to their inability to reject lure words consistent with the stories

Performance in the MRCP(UK) Examination 2003-4: analysis of pass rates of UK graduates in relation to self-declared ethnicity and gender

Background: Male students and students from ethnic minorities have been reported to underperform in undergraduate medical examinations. We examined the effects of ethnicity and gender on pass rates in UK medical graduates sitting the Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians in the United Kingdom [MRCP( UK)] Examination in 2003-4. Methods: Pass rates for each part of the examination were analysed for differences between graduate groupings based on self- declared ethnicity and gender.Results: All candidates declared their gender, and 84 - 90% declared their ethnicity. In all three parts of the examination, white candidates performed better than other ethnic groups (P < 0.001). In the MRCP(UK) Part 1 and Part 2 Written Examinations, there was no significant difference in pass rate between male and female graduates, nor was there any interaction between gender and ethnicity. In the Part 2 Clinical Examination (Practical Assessment of Clinical Examination Skills, PACES), women performed better than did men (P < 0.001). Non-white men performed more poorly than expected, relative to white men or non-white women. Analysis of individual station marks showed significant interaction between candidate and examiner ethnicity for performance on communication skills (P = 0.011), but not on clinical skills (P = 0.176). Analysis of overall average marks showed no interaction between candidate gender and the number of assessments made by female examiners (P = 0.151).Conclusion: The cause of these differences is most likely to be multifactorial, but cannot be readily explained in terms of previous educational experience or differential performance on particular parts of the examination. Potential examiner prejudice, significant only in the cases where there were two non- white examiners and the candidate was non- white, might indicate different cultural interpretations of the judgements being made

The Absence of Vortex Lattice Melting in a Conventional Superconductor

The state of the vortex lattice extremely close to the superconducting to normal transition in an applied magnetic field is investigated in high purity niobium. We observe that thermal fluctuations of the order parameter broaden the superconducting to normal transition into a crossover but no sign of a first order vortex lattice melting transition is detected in measurements of the heat capacity or the small angle neutron scattering (SANS) intensity. Direct observation of the vortices via SANS always finds a well ordered vortex lattice. The fluctuation broadening is considered in terms of the Lowest Landau Level theory of critical fluctuations and scaling is found to occur over a large H_{c2}(T) range

All-electron Exact Exchange Treatment of Semiconductors: Effect of Core-valence Interaction on Band-gap and dd-band Position

Exact exchange (EXX) Kohn-Sham calculations within an all-electron full-potential method are performed on a range of semiconductors and insulators (Ge, GaAs, CdS, Si, ZnS, C, BN, Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe). We find that the band-gaps are not as close to experiment as those obtained from previous pseudopotential EXX calculations. Full-potential band-gaps are also not significantly better for $sp$ semiconductors than for insulators, as had been found for pseudopotentials. The locations of $d$-band states, determined using the full-potential EXX method, are in excellent agreement with experiment, irrespective of whether these states are core, semi-core or valence. We conclude that the inclusion of the core-valence interaction is necessary for accurate determination of EXX Kohn-Sham band structures, indicating a possible deficiency in pseudopotential calculations.Comment: 4 pages 2 fig

Non-equilibrium structural phase transitions of the vortex lattice in MgB2

We have studied non-equilibrium phase transitions in the vortex lattice in superconducting MgB2, where metastable states are observed in connection with an intrinsically continuous rotation transition. Using small-angle neutron scattering and a stop-motion technique, we investigated the manner in which the metastable vortex lattice returns to the equilibrium state under the influence of an ac magnetic field. This shows a qualitative difference between the supercooled case which undergoes a discontinuous transition, and the superheated case where the transition to the equilibrium state is continuous. In both cases the transition may be described by an an activated process, with an activation barrier that increases as the metastable state is suppressed, as previously reported for the supercooled vortex lattice [E. R. Louden et al., Phys. Rev. B 99, 060502(R) (2019)]. Separate preparations of superheated metastable vortex lattices with different domain populations showed an identical transition towards the equilibrium state. This provides further evidence that the vortex lattice metastability, and the kinetics associated with the transition to the equilibrium state, is governed by nucleation and growth of domains and the associated domain boundaries.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1812.0597