Previous research reported about high comorbidity between asthma and neurodevelopmental disorders. Recently, asthma was associated also with executive functions poorness. The current study aimed to investigate the verbal and visual memory performances among fifteen asthmatic kindergarten children compared to the performances of other fifteen healthy kindergarten children. The results showed that the asthmatic group revealed poor performances in the immediate short term verbal memory and the verbal working memory tests but not in the verbal learning test as it was compared to the healthy group. In addition, the asthmatic group revealed poor performances in the visual memory tasks compared to the healthy group. The results were explained in light of the assumption that poor executive functions might be interfere the process of managing the attentional resources which are needed through the process of memory encoding and retrieval.

The paper takes under scrutiny Michael Köhlmeier’s novel Abendland, which portrays the history of the twentieth century in the form of oral family stories based on the biography of the main protagonist of the work, Carl Jacob Candoris, written down by his godson Sebastian Lukasser. Authentic historical events and actual characters are intermingled with fictitious figures and events. The article poses questions on individual and collective memory as well as the significance of oral history in the life of an individual.

The article presents the problem of colonial and postcolonial discourse in relation to Eastern Galicia. It discusses the forms of cultural domination existing throughout history in the region and draws attention to their conscious “playing” by successive rulers of this territory, consequently leading to the formation of memory conflicts.

Research suggests that placebo can reduce the misinformation effect. We aimed to examine for the first time whether placebo administered in the guise of caffeine can reduce the misinformation effect. One hundred and twenty -three healthy volunteers were randomly assigned to four groups in a 2 Placebo (Present, Not Present) × 2 Narrative (Misleading, Correct) study design. Participants from placebo groups drank 100 ml of placebo solution. They were told that it was water mixed with caffeine which could positively influence their memory. After three minutes, they watched a short movie clip as an original event and read a narrative with misleading details or correct details as a postevent information; they then completed a 22 -item, two -alternative forced -choice questionnaire. The results reveal that the misinformation effect occurred. Although participants in the placebo with misinformation group scored better than participants who did not drink placebo and read the narrative containing misleading details, the difference was not statistically significant. Thus, it is concluded that placebo might not be enough to reduce the misinformation effect when it is administered in the guise of caffeine.

The myth of Orpheus in the second postwar decade in Italy and Poland – The myth of Orpheus, in the second postwar decade, becomes a paradigmatic tale describing the horror of mourning and separation. Cesare Pavese and Anna Świrszczyńska, in their rewritings, elaborate that mith in a completely original way, tracing a new path of Orpheus’ journey to the underworld.

The process of cognitive aging in global sense can be characterised by changes of the fluid and crystallised intelligence. In the context of this explanation the basic question is which cognitive functions and regulatory mechanisms play the basic role of the determinants for cognitive aging. Probable, mechanism of associative memory play a central role in top-down direction of cognitive processing. This type of memory connect the resources/networks of long term memory with the current processing in working memory. Another set of mechanisms concerns with bottom-up direction based on procedural memory, which is fundamental for the functioning of the mind as whole (Tulving theory,1985). Unfortunately, our knowledge about associative memory and its relations to working and procedural memory is incomplete and unclear. The importance of associative memory are partly, empirically supported by classic research on decreasing the cognitive components of intelligence aging, since the fluid and crystallized intelligence where discovered (Horn, Cattell, 1967). Changes of the mind functioning and its cognitive growth/aging can be characterised as a complex chain from primary, biologically determined mind, through Piagetian and Vygotsky’s type of mind to relatively balanced mind.

The concept of city has got broad analytical perspectives, one of them are: the structural perspective, sociological, psychological, political, cultural, industrial and also the pedagogical perspective. In opposition to the concept of city is the concept of countryside, within which the concept of nature is regarded as an idyllic place, it is the place of childhood, the place of longing, it is the lost place that has been starting to go under the knife of time since the 20s of the last century. The apotheosis of the concept of city, that is being practiced by many artists, embracing the symbolics of the concept of city by mass culture and later by popular culture, causes the necessity to take the initiative of conducting the research that would attempt to establish the identity of the concept of city in modern culture. The article attempts to specify how the concept of city functions in popular culture through the analysis of chosen texts in popular music, starting from the 50s of the XX century until the XXI century.

The observation inflation effect consists in the fact that observing an action being performed can create false memories that this action has actually been performed by the observer. The present study examined the relationship between this effect and interrogative suggestibility. A procedure based on the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale was used to assess two kinds of suggestibility: the tendency to yield to suggestive questions (Yield) and the tendency to change answers after feedback (Shift). The participants first watched a film depicting a woman performing simple activities and performed various activities themselves during the film. In order to determine whether the observation inflation effect occurred, the participants performed a source-monitoring test. The observation inflation effect was replicated. Observation inflation correlated positively with Yield but not with Shift. This pattern of results can be explained by the fact these two indicators are different aspects of interrogative suggestibility. Shift is more related to social influence, while Yield is more cognitive in its nature.

Petra Reski (born in 1958) is a German writer from the post-war generation. Its representatives confront with dramatic consequences of the Second World War like the loss of homeland, the experience of escape and forced displacement. The article focuses on the Reski’s novel Ein Land so weit in the context of space. The narrator describes a sentimental journey to the home village in Warmia and family past. She documents impressions that combine different time dimensions, generations and memories.

Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the possible effect of bilberry fruit (Vaccinium myrtillus L.) supplement in a daily diet on the cognitive behaviour of the rats and the expression of paravalbumin (PV) in populations of hippocampal neurons. It has been postulated that the antioxidants present in bilberry fruit may act as neuroprotective factors playing also a significant role as memory enhancements. Forty Wistar rats with a similar average body weight (460 ± 0.4 g) were divided into four groups (n=10 per group). The control group received standard feed (210 g/week), whereas animals of experimental groups received standard feed supplemented with bilberry (per os) at consumed doses of 2 g (group I), 5 g (group II), and 10 g/kg b.w./ /day (group III). After three months of feeding with bilberry, the modified elevated plus-maze test (mEPM) was performed. After 32 weeks of feeding, brains were collected and PV-immunoreactive (ir) neurons were immunohistochemically visualized. In the modified elevated plus-maze test, transfer latency examined 2 h and 24 h after the acquisition session was significantly shorter (p<0.05) in the group II in comparison with the control group. In CA1 and CA2/CA3 hippocampal fields as well as dentate gyrus of all experimental groups, a significant (p<0.05) decrease in number of PV-ir neurons were found. In relation to the control group, the mean subpopulation of PV-ir neurons found in groups II and III were significantly reduced. The subpopulations of PV-ir neurons found in DG of all experimental groups were significantly reduced in comparison to the control. In conclusion the in the present paper we demonstrated a relationship between the diet rich in a bilberry fruit and process of memory as well as numbers of calcium- binding protein-expressing hippocampal neurons. Our results may be source of basic knowledge for further research aiming at neuroprotective role of the bilberry fruit.

In this article I try to think about the terms “stories” and “ontologies” in Ewa Domańska’s works: Mikrohistorie. Spotkania w międzyświatach (1999; 2005), Historie niekonwencjonalne (2006), Historia egzystencjonalna (2012), Historia ratownicza (2014) and I try to compare my conclusions with her latest publication. I am interested in the turning point in her thoughts, giving up the theory and methodology of history and switching to the ontology of the dead body. In order to do this I look through these publications and indicate which threads could help work out the excellent, innovative, and fresh conception of Nekros. The main part of the article is a detailed discussion of this. In the other part, I consider how to interpret more traditionally a past description like “cultural memory” and whether Domańska’s works accidentally invalidate them. I suggest a short statement of Marcin Napiórkowski’s and Stephen Marks’ works to show closer (Marks) and further (Napiórkowski) parallels or completely different presentations of similar problems.

The article is a brief presentation of the relationship between the politics of memory and Facebook. This type of connection advantages aestheticism, pictures and emotional infl uence but discounts traditional instruments modelling collective memory. The article focuses on the answer to the question of how a popular culture aesthetic infi ltrates and changes the politics of memory.

The article presents a constitutive model for Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) along with result of dynamic simulations of SMA model. The applications of devices incorporating SMA in civil engineering focus mostly on mitigation of the seismic hazard effects in new-build and historical buildings or improvement of fatigue resilience. The unique properties of SMA, such as shape memory effect and superelasticity give promising results for such applications. The presented model includes additional phenomenon of SMA – internal loops. The paper shows the method of formulation of physical relations of SMA based on special rheological structure, which includes modified Kepes’s model. This rheological element, introduced as dual-phase plasticity body, is given in the context of martensite phase transformation. One of the advantages of such an approach is a possibility of formulation of constitutive relationships as a set of explicit differential equations. The application of the model is demonstrated on example of dynamic simulations of three dimensional finite element subjected to dynamic excitation.

On the example of selected works by Oksana Zabuzhko, Volodymyr Lys, and Vasyl Shklar, I discuss the narrations of memory and ways of writing about history in Ukrainian contemporary prose. Historical topics concerning the traumatic experiences of the twentieth century appear in Ukrainian prose along with the regaining of independence and develop after 2000. The authors refer primarily to those issues which in the Soviet era were silenced, erased, censored. An important place in literary narratives of memory is occupied by the threads of OUN-UPA fi ghts, the Ukrainian-Bolshevik war, UNR times, Soviet terror, Great Hunger, the demythologization of World War II is also important, as well as an uncensored description of post-war Soviet reality. In the text, I do not carry out a detailed analysis of selected novels, but only highlight the main problems and ways in which authors write about history.