(ACS) or a Cognitive Attentional Syndrome-1 (CAS1), both of which are self-reporting questionnaires measuring attention focusing and attention shifting. Researchers are also suggesting others in the field use experimental and longitudinal designs to address the relationship between ACS, emotional functioning, CAS, and attention to threat. This is due to the increasing problematic occurrences experts are seeing in the field regarding attentional control in relation to other mental illnesses. Attention problems are also characteristic of anxiety disorders like PTSD. Attentional bias causes a person to process emotionally negative information preferentially over emotionally positive information. Participants were selected after being measured on scales for PTSD, anxiety proneness, attentional control, and attentional bias. Results indicated attentional control was inversely related to attentional bias. PTSD patients with higher attentional control exhibited less attentional bias. Individual differences in attentional control had an effect on anxiety problems in PTSD. Applications Performance Attentional control theory focuses on anxiety and cognitive performance. The assumption of this theory is that the effects of anxiety on attentional control are key to understanding the relationship between anxiety and performance. In general, anxiety inhibits attentional control on a specific task by impairing processing efficiency. There are three functions associated with this theory. The inhibition function prevents stimuli unrelated to a task and responses from disrupting performance. The shifting function is used to allocate attention to the stimuli that are most relevant to the task. The updating function is used to update and monitor information in working memory. There are three main hypotheses associated with attentional control theory. First, the efficiency of the central executive is impaired by anxiety. Second, anxiety impairs the inhibition function, and third, anxiety impairs the shifting function. Studies related to attentional control and performance take two differing approaches. Specifically, research on attentional capture has two modes: voluntary and reflexive. The voluntary mode is a top down approach where attention is shifted according to high-level cognitive processes. The reflexive mode is a bottom up approach where attention shifts involuntarily based on a stimulus's attention attracting properties. These modes are important to understanding how attentional control works. Mindfulness Even four days of mindfulness meditation training can significantly improve visuo-spatial processing, working memory and executive functioning. However, research has shown mixed results surrounding whether mindfulness effects attentional control directly. Participants did tasks of sustained attention, inhibition, switching, and object detection. These tasks were done before and after an 8-week mindfulness based