239 research outputs found
Attention Restraint, Working Memory Capacity, and Mind Wandering: Do Emotional Valence or Intentionality Matter?
Attention restraint appears to mediate the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and mind wandering (Kane et al., 2016). Prior work has identifed two dimensions of mind wandering—emotional valence and intentionality. However, less is known about how WMC and attention restraint correlate with these dimensions. Te current study examined the relationship between WMC, attention restraint, and mind wandering by emotional valence and intentionality. A confrmatory factor analysis demonstrated that WMC and attention restraint were strongly correlated, but only attention restraint was related to overall mind wandering, consistent with prior fndings. However, when examining the emotional valence of mind wandering, attention restraint and WMC were related to negatively and positively valenced, but not neutral, mind wandering. Attention restraint was also related to intentional but not unintentional mind wandering. Tese results suggest that WMC and attention restraint predict some, but not all, types of mind wandering
Creatine and Cognitive Functioning: What is the role of Exercise Frequency?
Creatine consumption appears to have a positive impact on cognitive function in different populations but the effects of creatine in a young, healthy population are mixed. Additionally, exercise appears to benefit cognitive processes in young and older adults. The present study explored the ways in which exercise frequency may moderate the effect of creatine consumption on working memory, sustained attention, mind wandering, and speed of processing, in a young, healthy, adult population. Forty-two individuals were randomly assigned to a creatine condition (n = 20) or a control condition (n = 22). For each session, participants completed the Symmetry Span Task, Sustained Attention to Response Task with thought probes, the Pattern Comparison Task, Daily Inventory of Stressful Events, Perceived Stress Scale, State Trait Anxiety Inventory, and supplied a saliva sample. Participants in the creatine supplementation condition were instructed to consume 5g of creatine monohydrate per day for a 6-week period between sessions. Results suggested that exercise frequency was related to differences in working memory task performance. Exercise frequency moderated the effect of creatine consumption on sustained attention and mind wandering, such that beneficial effects were observed only among participants who consumed creatine and reported less frequent exercise. Results from this study suggest that creatine supplementation can serve as a possible aid to cognitive functioning in individuals who lead a sedentary lifestyle
On Brane Inflation With Volume Stabilization
The distance between BPS branes in string theory corresponds to a flat
direction in the effective potential. Small deviations from supersymmetry may
lead to a small uplifting of this flat direction and to brane inflation.
However, this scenario can work only if the BPS properties of the branes and
the corresponding flatness of the inflaton potential are preserved in the
theories with the stable volume compactification. We present an ``inflaton
trench'' mechanism that keeps the inflaton potential flat due to shift
symmetry, which is related to near BPS symmetry in our model.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure
Gaugino Condensation in N=1 Supergravity Models with Multiple Dilaton-Like Fields
We study supersymmetry breaking by hidden-sector gaugino condensation in N=1
D=4 supergravity models with multiple dilaton-like moduli fields. Our work is
motivated by Type I string theory, in which the low-energy effective Lagrangian
can have different dilaton-like fields coupling to different sectors of the
theory. We construct the effective Lagrangian for gaugino condensation and use
it to compute the visible-sector gaugino masses. We find that the gaugino
masses can be of order the gravitino mass, in stark contrast to heterotic
string models with a single dilaton field.Comment: LaTeX, 17 pages, 2 eps figure
Deconfining Phase Transition as a Matrix Model of Renormalized Polyakov Loops
We discuss how to extract renormalized from bare Polyakov loops in SU(N)
lattice gauge theories at nonzero temperature in four spacetime dimensions.
Single loops in an irreducible representation are multiplicatively renormalized
without mixing, through a renormalization constant which depends upon both
representation and temperature. The values of renormalized loops in the four
lowest representations of SU(3) were measured numerically on small, coarse
lattices. We find that in magnitude, condensates for the sextet and octet loops
are approximately the square of the triplet loop. This agrees with a large
expansion, where factorization implies that the expectation values of loops in
adjoint and higher representations are just powers of fundamental and
anti-fundamental loops. For three colors, numerically the corrections to the
large relations are greatest for the sextet loop, ; these
represent corrections of for N=3. The values of the renormalized
triplet loop can be described by an SU(3) matrix model, with an effective
action dominated by the triplet loop. In several ways, the deconfining phase
transition for N=3 appears to be like that in the matrix model of
Gross and Witten.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures; v2, 27 pages, 12 figures, extended discussion
for clarity, results unchange
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