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https://osf.io/ewxp6/contains information for the paper "Attentional control settings and emotion" (Plater, Valecha, Gupta, Pratt, & Al-Aidroos), submitted to Cognition and Emotion.

Researchers often treat different cognitive processes in Psychology (e.g., memory and attention) as separate entities, but recent research has emphasized the importance of considering the interactions between these processes. Thus, the purpose of the current experiment was to determine whether a traditionally attention-focused task, the Posner cueing task (Giammarco et al., 2016; Posner, 1980; Posner & Cohen, 1984), could be used to assess a traditionally memory-centric process, reconsolidation (Nader et al., 2000). The present study used Hupbach et al.'s (2007) methods, but replaced the Day 3 object recall task (i.e., recall as many Day 1 objects as possible) with a Day 3 object search task (i.e., a modified Posner cueing task where participants had to search for any of the objects they had memorized on Day 1).

Observers adopt attentional control settings (ACSs) based on their current attentional goals that specify which external stimuli should capture attention. The capture of visual-spatial attention is contingent (i.e., dependent) on the current goal: When searching for a friend wearing a blue shirt, blue stimuli will capture attention, and red stimuli will not. While ACSs play a crucial role in determining which stimuli should capture attention, our understanding of them is still quite limited. The goal of the present thesis was to expand our understanding of ACSs by investigating the memory systems that maintain ACS representations, the internal representations of searched-for external stimuli (e.g., “blue”). To accomplish this goal, all experiments in this thesis used an attention cueing task where participants searched for one or more target stimuli, thereby inducing the ACS representation(s). Just before the target appeared, a cue appeared, which should be ignored. Importantly, if the cue is a searched-for stimulus, it will capture attention, otherwise it will not (Folk et al., 1992). Chapter 1 investigated whether visual working memory (VWM) can maintain one or more ACS representations. Results indicated that VWM can maintain an ACS representation of one searched-for stimulus. Chapter 2 investigated whether external stimuli that match ACS representations in long-term memory (LTM) truly capture visual-spatial attention. Electroencephalography results indicate that this is the case, as searched-for stimuli elicited shifts in attention within 170 ms. Chapter 3 investigated whether observers can simultaneously maintain a VWM ACS representation and multiple LTM ACS representations. Results suggest that this is indeed possible. Thus, the results of the present thesis indicate that multiple memory systems can maintain ACS representations. Additionally, these findings have implications for current models of attentional capture, which are described in the General Discussion. This thesis enhances our understanding of ACSs and the memory systems that support ACS representations, thereby expanding our understanding of how we successfully navigate our complex visual environments. This work was supported by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada under Discovery Grant number 418507-201 and Canadian Foundation for Innovation under Grant number 30374 to Dr. Naseem Al-Aidroos.

Attentional control settings (ACSs) allow us to constrain which objects in our complex visual environment capture attention. Recent research has shown that ACSs can be maintained by long-term memory (LTM); but what is special about LTM ACSs that they bias attentional capture, when other LTMs do not? Is it possible that they have been activated? To test this, we mixed spatial blink trials to test for the presence of an ACS, and working memory trials to test for representation in activated LTM (ALTM). We induced participants to adopt an LTM ACS for 30 (Experiment 1) or 15 (Experiment 2) complex visual objects, but this did not consistently result in representation in ALTM for those objects. We induced participants to represent objects in ALTM (Experiments 3 and 4), but this did not result in an ACS for those objects. We conclude that LTM ACSs are not accomplished through ALTM. This research was supported in part by an NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship and a Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology to Lindsay Plater, and an NSERC Discovery Grant (418507-201) and a CFI Grant (30374) to Dr. Naseem Al-Aidroos.