Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development
School of Psychology, Birkbeck College
32 Torrington Square, London WC1E 7HX
Phone: +44 (0)20 7631 6327
Fax: +44 (0)20 7631 6587
Email: p.tomalski at bbk.ac.uk email me
Research interests
My current work as a postdoctoral researcher is concerned with the early impact of diverse socio-economic backgrounds on early language, attention and social-cognitive developmenta of infants in the first year of life. In particular, we study cognitive development of infants coming from families with low SES on a variety of measures, including ERPs, eye-tracking and standardised behavioural assessment. This project is funded by a donation from the Eranda Foundation and run in collaboration with Prof. Derek Moore and Dr Elena Kushnerenko from the University of East London.
My Ph.D. project was focused on the neural basis of face processing in the human brain, especially on the role of subcortical visual pathways during the early stages of such processing. It was aimed at studying how evolutionarily ancient retinotectal visual pathway (including superior colliculus, pulvinar and amygdala) is active in humans from birth through adulthood, allowing rapid detection of faces and facial emotion expressions. I have studied effects of faces and schematic faces on attention and eye movements, with covert and overt orienting tasks. I have also used EEG/ERPs (event-related potentials) and time-frequency analysis to study the influences of the subcortical face pathway on the early stages of cortical face processing (during the first 200 ms from the onset of the stimulus).
Previously I have also worked on other aspects of social-cognitive development and its neural mechanisms, especially on attachment representations in families of gay and lesbian couples (this work was published as a book in Polish at Warsaw University Press (see: Publications).
Curriculum vitae
2009 – Postdoctoral Research Fellow, CBCD Birkbeck. Funding: Eranda Foundation
2009 Ph.D. – Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
Supervisors: Prof. Mark Johnson & Prof. Gergely Csibra; Funding: Marie Curie Early-Stage Training Fellowship, EU
2005 Master in Psychology - Centre for Interfaculty Individual Studies in Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Warsaw University, Poland; Subject areas: Psychology (major), Molecular Biology (minor).
2003 - 2005 Fellow of the Invisible College, Poland; Supervisor of studies: Prof. Marina Zalewska; Funding: Open Society Institute, Budapest
Publications
Recent publications
Tomalski P., Johnson MH & Csibra G. (in preparation). N170 responses to faces and face-like patterns: the effects of contrast polarity and orientation and the role of extrageniculate visual pathways.
Tomalski P., Johnson MH.& Csibra G. (in press). Temporal-nasal asymmetry of rapid orienting to face-like stimuli. Neuroreport. pdf
Tomalski P., Csibra G. & Johnson MH. (2009). Rapid orienting towards face-like stimuli with gaze-relevant contrast information. Perception, 38, 569-578. pdf
Other publications in Polish
Tomalski P. (2007). [Uncommon families. On relationships of lesbian and gay couples and their children from the perspective of attachment theory]. Warsaw: Warsaw University Press. (authored book based on master thesis, in Polish, more on publisher's website).
Tomalski P. (2004). [Cognitive neuroscience - nothing is simple anymore] in: (ed.) Szymanik J., Zajenkowski M. [Cognitive science. Deliberately and Inadvertently About Mind.]. Warsaw: KFpM Ed. (theoretical paper, in Polish)
Review papers
Tomalski P. (2005). [The Origin of Psychosomatic Disorders in Children: Early Relational Trauma and Brain Mechanisms of Disorders of Affect Regulation], Studia Psychologiczne, 43(3), 79-90. (in Polish).
Tomalski P. (2003). [Conversion disorder from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience]. 7th Annual Review of Polish Students' Life Science Research Societies, Bialystok, November. Conference proceedings, pp. 161-166. (in Polish).
Past conference presentations and posters
Tomalski P., Csibra G. and Johnson MH. Temporal-nasal asymmetry of the N170 responses to face-like patterns in the visual periphery. 16th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA, US, 11 - 14 March 2009.
Tomalski P., Csibra G. and Johnson M.H.The role of contrast polarity and subcortical visual pathways in rapid orienting to face-like stimuli. 15th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA, US, 12 - 15 April 2008.
Tomalski P., Csibra G. and Johnson M.H. Adults retain newborn bias to orient towards upright schematic faces. 26th European Cognitive Neuropsychology Meeting, Bressanone, Italy, 20 - 25 January 2008.
Tomalski P., Csibra G. and Johnson M.H. Adults detect and orient faster towards upright than inverted schematic face: Continuity of face biasing system from birth? 37th Jean Piaget Society Annual Meeting 'Social Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience', Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 31 May-2 June 2007.
Grieb P., Gordon-Krajcer W., Stefanowicz M., Fiedorowicz M., Tomalski P. & Mossakowski MJ. [Changes of Tau protein phosphorylation and beta-APP expression after 2-deoxyglucose administration.] 5th Polish Neurochemical Conference 'Molecular Basis of Pathology and Therapy of Neurological Disorders', Warsaw, Poland, December 2001.
Recently attended workshops and conferences
2nd FENS Neurotrain Summer School 'Choosing the right models for studying cognition and its disturbances', 20-27 June 2007, Ofir, Portugal (received an award from the FENS to travel and attend the course)
The John Merck Fund Summer Institute on the Biology of Developmental Disabilities, 3-8 June 2007, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA (received Summer Institute Fellowship to travel and attend the course)
7th EMBL/EMBO Science and Society Conference, 3-4 November 2006, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany