Barbara Łukomska

Social sciences researchers emphasize that new technologies can overcome the limitations of small and homogenous samples. In research on early language development, which often uses parental reports, taking the testing online might be particularly compelling. Due to logistical limitations, previous studies on bilingual children have explored the language development trajectories in general (e.g., by including few and largely set apart timepoints), or focused on small, homogeneous samples. The present study protocol presents a new, on-going study which uses new technologies to collect longitudinal data continuously from parents of multilingual, bilingual, and monolingual children. Our primary aim is to establish the developmental trajectories in Polish-British English and Polish-Norwegian bilingual children and Polish monolingual children aged 0–3 years with the use of mobile and web-based applications. These tools allow parents to report their children’s language development as it progresses, and allow us to characterize children’s performance in each language (the age of reaching particular language milestones). The project’s novelty rests on its use of mobile technologies to characterize the bilingual and monolingual developmental trajectory from the very first words to broader vocabulary and multiword combinations.

Shift work can be associated with health and sleep problems, which may lead to cognitive impairment. This study investigated the effects of shift work on sleep, health behaviours and cognitive functions of Polish rescue service workers. We tested 18 paramedics working 12-h shifts, 15 firefighters working 24-h shifts and 17 daytime workers. We measured general sleepiness, workload during shifts and the occurrence of health behaviours. Additionally, we measured attention, executive function and subjective alertness. Paramedics showed lower average sleep duration and quality, and fewer health behaviours than firefighters and the control group. However, no differences were found in performance on cognitive tests between the groups and between the measures. The results indicate that the differences in job specificity may contribute to the effects of shift work on the sleep and health of the workers.

Introduction: Working shifts has a negative impact on employee health and cognitive efficiency. The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of shift work on cognitive functions - attention and working memory - using both behavioural and electrophysiological measures. Materials and method: The study was carried out on a group of 34 shift employees: 18 paramedics, 16 firefighters and 17 day workers. The participant performed Attention Network Test (ANT) and N-back task with 2 conditions (1-back, 2-back) while EEG signal was recorded. Results: There were observed higher amplitude of the P200 potential in paramedics (compare to control group), higher amplitude of the P300 potential after work than on a day off, the lowest increase in power in the theta band after the night shift. In firefighters a lower alpha desynchronisation and lower synchronisation in the alpha/beta band was observed after a 24-hour shift. Paramedics and firefighters had longer reaction times (N-back). Conclusions: The results suggest that paramedics experiences problems with sustained attention. Paramedics process visual stimuli in a different way; after a night shift, performing the tasks required more engagement of cognitive resources. In firefighters, a decrease in the visual attention functions and cognitive inhibition was observed.