The mediators of minority ethnic underperformance in final medical school examinations

Background. UK‐trained medical students and doctors from minority ethnic groups underperform academically. It is unclear why this problem exists, which makes it difficult to know how to address it. Aim. To investigate whether demographic and psychological factors mediate the relationship between ethnicity and final examination scores. Sample. Two consecutive cohorts of Year 5 (final year) UCL Medical School students (n= 703; 51% minority ethnic). A total of 587 (83%) had previously completed a questionnaire in Year 3. Methods. Participants were administered a questionnaire in 2005 and 2006 that included a short version of the NEO‐PI‐R, the Study Process Questionnaire, and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) as well as socio‐demographic measures. Participants were then followed up to final year (2007–2010). White and minority ethnic students’ questionnaire responses and final examination grades were compared using univariate tests. The effect of ethnicity on final year grades after taking into account the questionnaire variables was calculated using hierarchical multiple linear regression. Results. Univariate ethnic differences were found on age, personality, learning styles, living at home, first language, parental factors, and prior education. Minority ethnic students had lower final exam scores, were more likely to fail, and less likely to achieve a merit or distinction in finals. Multivariate analyses showed ethnicity predicted final exam scores even after taking into account questionnaire factors. Conclusions. Ethnic differences in the final year performance of two cohorts of UCL medical students were not due to differences in psychological or demographic factors, which suggests alternative explanations are responsible for the ethnic attainment gap in medicine.     

The development of visual short-term memory for multifeature items during middle childhood

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) research suggests that the adult capacity is limited to three or four multifeature object representations. Despite evidence supporting a developmental increase in capacity, it remains unclear what the unit of capacity is in children. The current study employed the change detection paradigm to investigate both the capacity and nature of the representations of VSTM in 7-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and adults. Two experimental conditions were used to compare memory performance for single-feature objects with that for multifeature objects. Results provided further and more convincing evidence for a developmental increase in VSTM. Furthermore, the “loading up” of features in the multifeature condition was found to incur no significant performance deficit in all age groups. These findings are explained in terms of a developmental increase in the number of integrated multifeature object representations in VSTM.     

Sex differences in components of imagined perspective transformation

We explored the impact of motor experience on the interaction between implicit motor simulation and language-processing. In an action familiarity judgment task, expert volleyball players, fans and novices were presented with semantically correct sentences describing possible and not possible motor actions, all as negative or positive contexts, e.g., "Don't shank!" or "Assist!". As processing negated action-phrases is known to reduce simulation states, exposure to negative or positive contexts was used here to test how simulation varies according to motor feasibility (possible, impossible) and experience (experts and fans). A significant group×stimulus×context interaction showed that athletes and fans, took longer to process negative than positive contexts for possible actions, compared to action-impossible sentences. In addition, experts were significantly faster and more accurate than fans and, in turn, they were both more accurate than novices. Thus, implicit motor simulation impacts on action-verb processing depending on (i) the domain-relevant expertise, (ii) the feasibility of the actions, and (iii) on whether scenes are presented in a negated context. These results suggest that the implicit triggering of motor representations is modulated by the context and it is tuned to people's motor repertoire, even when actions are described linguistically.     

The relationship between retrieval-induced forgetting, anxiety, and personality

Abstract Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) refers to the finding that the retrieval of a memory trace suppresses the retrieval of rival memory traces, and there is evidence that RIF reflects the effects of cognitive inhibition. The Attentional Control Theory (ACT) postulates that cognitive inhibition will be impaired by a high level of state anxiety, but the effect of anxiety on RIF has not previously been investigated. A sample of 116 participants were tested on the RIF procedure, and were also administered the Spielberger State Anxiety Inventory and the Big Five Personality Inventory. The results indicated a significant negative correlation between RIF scores and state anxiety, and a significant positive correlation between RIF scores and extraversion. However, a multiple regression analysis identified extraversion as the main predictor of RIF performance. None of the other personality factors correlated with RIF scores. These findings are consistent with the predictions of the ACT.     

A simple epidural cannula for the rat

A simple epidural cannula for use with small animals is described.     

被遗忘的《古兰经》文化

文化是否能够改变文明，就像人类一样，个人或家族经历中曾被抑制的因素会留下印记，甚至会在当今引发混乱？对上述两种情况，我们是否可以提出假设：以往未解决的冲突和“被遗忘的”，即被抑制的渊源会在当下以不满、冲突和激情的方式重现显现出来？     

The relationship between naturally occurring dysphoric moods,elaborative encoding,and recall performance

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of levels of naturally occurring dysphoria and elaborative encoding on recall. Previous research has indicated that the facilitative effects of elaborative encoding on recall are reduced by the induction of negative moods in laboratory settings. However, the effects of endogenous dysphoria on recall are less clear. In the present study, 82 subjects from a college population were categorised as dysphoria or nondysphoric on the basis of two self-report measures. They were then presented with sentences in both elaborated and nonelaborated form, and recall for target words embedded in the sentences was assessed. Results demonstrated that nondysphoric individuals benefited from elaborative encoding in recall performance, whereas dysphoric individuals did not. Results are discussed in terms of Ellis and Ashbrook's (1988) resource allocation model of depression.