Rationale. Plain (or standardised) packaging would mean standardising the size, shape and colour of cigarette packs, removing all branding, leaving only the brand name in a standard font and location. In what have been predominantly qualitative studies, prior research has shown that plain packaging makes the health warnings more noticeable, reduces the appeal of the pack and prevents people from being mislead about the health risks of smoking. However, this research has been criticised by the tobacco industry for lacking in credibility. Methods. Using a series of experimental methodologies such as eye-tracking, attentional bi~s paradigms, brain imaging and randomised controlled trial design, the research conducted here is some of the first to use objective bio-behavioural measures to investigate the impact of plain packaging on visual attention and behaviour. Results. This research explores the attentional mechanisms underlying visual attention to cigarette packaging and finds that plain packaging can increase visual attention to health warnings among non-smokers and non-established smokers, but not among daily smokers, who actively avoid warnings. Furthermore, this research shows that even among dependent daily smokers, using plain packaging in the ' real-world' leads to changes in behaviour and attitudes to smoking. Conclusions. Overall, this thesis provides important information on how cigarette packaging can be used to increase attention to health warnings and more generally, on the mechanisms which guide attention to tobacco branding and health warnings. Beyond these scientific implications, the work conducted here has already had an impact on tobacco control policy. It was included in the European Commission's Tobacco Products Directive and has also been used by both the UK and Australian governments in their reviews of the evidence supporting plain packaging. These data support the view that plain packaging should be introduced in the UK.

This thesis examines the factors (e.g., task load, distractor features, or individual differences) that determine the extent to which individuals are distracted and the manner in which these factors interact. In particular, established theories of attention are applied to two understudied forms of distraction common to daily life: distraction by entirely task-irrelevant external stimuli and internal distraction from unintentional task-unrelated thoughts (i.e. mind-wandering). The experiments reported in this thesis establish a new measure of distraction by entirely task-irrelevant stimuli, drawing on the attentional capture literature to demonstrate that this form of distraction can occur in the absence of any top down attentional settings relating to the distractor or task features. It is also demonstrated that both of this form of distraction and also mindwandering can be modulated by the level of perceptual task-load – an established determinant of other forms of distractor processing. In this manner the thesis integrates two previously separate bodies of literature on selective attention and mind-wandering. In addition, individual differences in both internal and external forms of distraction are shown to be correlated, suggesting a common underlying trait influencing susceptibility to distraction both from internal sources (in the form of mind-wandering) and from external task-irrelevant distractor stimuli.

Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment is one of the most famous experiments in the history of psychology. This magnanimous statement, and so many others like it, is invariably followed by a claim that Milgram proved the majority of people will harm another person if instructed to do so by an authority figure. This thesis is a close and experiential reading of Milgram’s obedience to authority experiment conducted at Yale University between 1960 and 1963 not to ascertain the truth behind such claims but to accept them and build a narrative towards how they came to be. Milgram’s experiments are a complex and nuanced case study with which to examine the transferential relationship between science and culture. Taking the simulated shock generator as an omnipresent and invaluable aspect of Milgram’s laboratory apparatus, I introduce a specific way of seeing the paradigm: as a metaphorical model for critiquing the social world rather than measuring and generalising our role as agents within it. Incorporating a visual rhetorical approach mixed with design history, media studies and history of science, I also demonstrate the importance of fiction in methodological investigations in both history as well as social science. These directions help me answer the question of: what can we learn from looking at this well-worn subject from an object perspective; and what happens to a laboratory instrument when we take it out of its disciplinary enclave of empirical science? The result is an imminent critique about representational frameworks, the pursuit of knowledge and how we draw upon structures of investigation to simultaneously inform and critique the social world. My research draws heavily upon the Stanley Milgram Papers at Yale University, the Archive of the History of American Psychology at University of Akron, and Dramaco Instruments, a fictional and informative resource.

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Previous studies have shown that accessibility of conceptual information declines when sets of semantically-related items are presented repeatedly, although the underlying basis of this effect is debated – it is unclear if comprehension can decline without massed repetition of individual items, or if this effect is restricted to lexical retrieval in picture naming. Furthermore, declining comprehension has been characterised as arising from both ‘too much activation’ (i.e., on-going strong activation of competitors) and ‘too much inhibition’ (i.e., a failure to overcome inhibition which may facilitate the earlier retrieval of semantically-related targets). The thesis explored the impact of experimental manipulations (speed of presentation; strength of association between category and target item; modality of presentation; type of semantic decision required), on the magnitude of declining comprehension in healthy young adults. Comprehension declined even without individual item repetition, especially for strongly-associated targets (which may have accrued more competition or inhibition). The effect was found irrespective of presentation modality and more strongly at fast presentation speeds (when there was less time to overcome competition/inhibition). Next, the thesis examined the impact of ageing and semantic aphasia on changes in comprehension within the continuous categorisation paradigm. In these populations, controlled retrieval of conceptual information is thought to be weakened (relative to younger adults and healthy controls without aphasia). This should exaggerate declines in comprehension that reflect difficulty overcoming competition, but reduce the effect if it arises from the inhibition of competitors on earlier trials. The results were in line with the second hypothesis, since older adults and patients with semantic aphasia maintained their performance throughout the categories, unlike younger adults. Lastly, the thesis examined how this effect is modulated by transcranial electrical stimulation delivered to a key brain region implicated in semantic control – left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG). Stimulation of LIFG attenuated the effect of declining comprehension, perhaps because initial retrieval was facilitated (potentially reducing the inhibition of related information), and/or because subsequent target selection was strengthened. Together, these results provide a more comprehensive account of what drives declining performance in continuous categorisation in healthy young adults who have the capacity to strongly engage semantic control.

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During search, individuals direct attention to potential targets and remember locations visited. Previously this has been examined in visual search paradigms, but this thesis investigates these mechanisms of attention and memory in large scale search. Participants searched a room containing an array of illuminated locations embedded in the floor. The participants' task was to press the switches at the illuminated locations on the floor to locate a target that changed colour when pressed. Across all experiments, the perceptual salience of search locations was manipulated by having some locations flashing and some static. Adults and children (Age 6-12) are more likely to search at flashing locations - their attention is captured by the salience of the flashing lights, leading to a bias to explore these targets (Chapter 2 Experiments 1-4). This effect is robust and does not show developmental progression from 6years of age through adulthood (Chapter 3 Experiment 1). Both adults and children are more able to equally explore flashing and static exploration to flashing locations when not required to remember which locations had been previously visited, indicating an interaction between memory and attention mechanisms during search. This finding builds upon established work of load theory of attention during visual search. Further evidence for this memory attention interaction comes from search tasks with concurrent digit span or auditory tasks (Chapter 2 Experiments 3& 4, Chapter 3 Experiment 2). Finally I examine ability to learn likely target locations (Chapter 4) and find that adults are more able and faster, to learn likely target locations among salient targets. Overall, this thesis provides an account of the strong interactions between attention and memory during large scale search, and how these processes develop. It builds upon a framework from visual search literature to understand how these processes function and develop in a larger search environment