There have been many attempts to account theoretically for the effects of anxiety on cognitive performance. This article focuses on two theories based on insights from cognitive psychology. The more recent is the attentional control theory (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), which developed from the earlier processing efficiency theory (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992). Both theories assume ther...

Several studies have researched the attentional functioning of schizophrenic patients by means of the Attentional Network Test. The present work reviews these studies and assesses the clinical relevance of their results. Both the reviewed data and our own results suggest that the Attentional Network Test does not provide a clear-cut discrimination of the attentional profile of schizophrenic pat...

This study sought to examine the effect of meditation experience on brain networks underlying cognitive actions employed during contemplative practice. In a previous study, we proposed a basic model of naturalistic cognitive fluctuations that occur during the practice of focused attention meditation. This model specifies four intervals in a cognitive cycle: mind wandering (MW), awareness of MW,...

The consequences of epilepsy are often as serious as having the disorder itself. One particularly important consequence is the impairment of cognitive function. Cognitive function is a higher order behavior–—that is, the capacity of the brain to program adaptive behavior, solve problems, memorize information, and focus attention. Epilepsy is a symptom of ictal and interictal brain dysfunction. ...

Previous studies on attentional biases often show contradictory results. This suggests that important moderating variables have been neglected so far. We suggest that (1) control over potential consequences and (2) satisfaction with the current status are important factors that need to be considered. We explored the influence of these variables using a colour classification task, where colours ...

Visual attention is often hypothesized to play a causal role in the development of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Because attention shapes perception, learning, and social interaction, early deficits in attention could substantially impact the development of other perceptual and cognitive abilities. Here we test two key attentional phenomena thought to be disrupted in autism: attentional disen...

Cognitive theories assume a uniform processing bias across different samples, but the empirical support for this claim is rather weak and inconsistent. Therefore, coherence between biases across different cognitive domains in a sample of 133 non-depressed (Study 1) and a sample of 266 formerly depressed individuals (Study 2) was examined. In both studies, individuals were selected after a succe...