Results support sustained attention’s floodlight, such that moments of high sustained attentional state increase processing of images regardless of relevance! Future work will test whether we see floodlight processing when irrelevant stimuli compete for processing 5/5

We show across two online samples that attentional state during a continuous performance task positively predicts subsequent memory for images– both task-relevant targets and task-irrelevant images presented at the same time 4/5

How does sustained attention impact task-irrelevant memory? Motivated by our recent work (osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/k9cnm) we hypothesized that high attn states might affect processing like a spotlight, filtering irrelevant images, or a floodlight, increasing irrelevant processing 3/5

In an initial experiment, we show that sustained attentional state– measured by continuous performance task accuracy and RT– predicts image memory in an online sample 2/5