Research in the Cognition & Emotion Lab examines individual differences in cognition, attention, and memory that are associated with mood disorders, aging, and body image and eating disturbances. We are especially interested in the effects of experimentally-induced moods on attention and memory for emotional information, in younger and older adults. We use eye gaze tracking in many of our studies to determine how people attend to emotional information when multiple stimuli compete for attention. 

One goal of our research is to identify attention and memory biases that can distinguish between depressed, never depressed, and depression-vulnerable individuals (e.g., Fernandez, Quigley, Dobson, & Sears, 2022; Newman, Quigley, Fernandez, Dobson, & Sears, 2019).  We have also examined attention to threat in PTSD (Thomas, Goegan, Newman, Arndt, & Sears, 2013), the links between trait anxiety and attentional control (Wright, Dobson, & Sears, 2014; Quigley, Wright, Dobson, & Sears, 2017), and attentional biases in women with body image and eating disturbances (e.g., Popien, Frayn, von Ranson, & Sears, 2015; Frayn, Sears, & von Ranson, 2016; Withnell, Sears, & von Ranson, 2019; Tobin, Sears, & von Ranson, 2022).  

The lab is part of the Brain and Cognitive Sciences graduate program in the Department of Psychology. The University of Calgary is ranked as one of Canada’s top universities. More than 35,000 students are enrolled in undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs, including medicine, law, and veterinary medicine. Click here for more information. The Department of Psychology consists of 40 faculty members, with more than 70 graduate students pursuing MSc and PhD degrees. Information on financial support for graduate students can be found here.

Research in the Cognition and Emotion Lab has been funded by a variety of agencies, including research grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Alberta Innovates-Health Solutions (AIHS), the Alberta Gambling Research Institute (AGRI), and the University of Calgary Research Grants Committee. Graduate students in the lab have won major scholarships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), CIHR, AIHS, AGRI, and NSERC.

We are located in the Administration Building (Admin 06) and can be reached at 403-220-4667. Click here for a map of the campus. If you would like to participate in one of our studies, volunteer as a research assistant (for PSYC 499), or learn about honours thesis supervision and graduate student opportunities, please contact Dr. Sears on the People page above.