Common coding theory suggests that any action (pressing a piano key) is intimately linked with its resultant sensory effect (an auditory musical tone). We conducted two experiments to explore the effect of varying auditory action-effect patterns during complex action learning. In Experiment 1, participants were assigned to 1 of 4 groups, watched a silent video of a hand playing a sequence on a ...

The studentBMJ has provided a forum for medical student debate for the past eight years. The issues that students need to discuss deserve dedicated journal space. Being able to comment on issues such as admissions policies and teaching styles may affect many future generations of doctors as well. As there are thousands of doctors in training world wide, the more ways available for students to e...

Problems in fault-tolerant distributed computing have been studied in a variety of models. These models are structured around two central ideas: 1. Degree of synchrony and failure model are two independent parameters that determine a particular type of system. 2. Failure and faulty component (i.e., the component responsible for the failure) are necessary and indissociable notions for the analys...

This study examined fMRI activation when perceivers either passively observed or observed and imitated matched or mismatched audiovisual ("McGurk") speech stimuli. Greater activation was observed in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) overall for imitation than for perception of audiovisual speech and for imitation of the McGurk-type mismatched stimuli than matched audiovisual stimuli. This unique...

The short-term memory performance of a group of younger adults, for whom English was a second language (young EL2 listeners), was compared to that of younger and older adults for whom English was their first language (EL1 listeners). To-be-remembered words were presented in noise and in quiet. When presented in noise, the listening situation was adjusted to ensure that the likelihood of recogni...

This study examines, via evoked potentials called closurepositive-shifts (CPSs), how listeners segment heard utterances on-line. The aim was to determine whether marks of rhythm groups in heard utterances can evoke CPSs independent of varying intonation and syntactic structures. Ten subjects were presented with sets of utterances bearing changing intonation and syntax and the results show that ...

Patient safety incident reporting systems are used to monitor adverse events, generate information for risk management and to improve patient safety. A number of electronic reporting systems have been developed, but their data elements appear relatively similar. An inductive data analysis was carried out to find out especially what is the content of descriptions of contributing factors of adver...

Whistleblowing by health professionals is an infrequent and extraordinary event and need not occur if internal voices are heard. Mannion and Davies’ editorial on “Cultures of Silence and Cultures of Voice: The Role of Whistleblowing in Healthcare Organisations” asks the question whether whistleblowing ameliorates or exacerbates the ‘deaf effect’ prevalent in healthcare organisations. This comme...

Over a century ago, the psychologist William James proposed a thought experiment, and suggested the answer: if the eyes were forced to connect to the auditory centres of the brain, and the ears with the visual centres, we would “hear the lightning and see the thunder” [1]. James’ point was that the perceptual qualities of our sensations — what philosophers term qualia — have their origin in the...