Our ability to process and act on information in the environment is limited. This reflects constraints imposed by perceptual systems and post-perceptual processes, such as short-term memory. To deal with these constraints, individuals must select, encode, retain and act upon sensory information in response to changing task demands. Psychologists and neuroscientists use the term “attention” to describe the processes involved in this selection. Our research investigates the cognitive and neural mechanisms that select or "prioritise" sensory information during visual and auditory sampling, encoding and maintenance in short-term memory. Our research focusses on basic science, as well as changes in attentional control across the healthy life-span and among clinical populations including those with PTSD and ME/CFS.