Dataset Information

When attention is intact in adults with ADHD.

ABSTRACT: Is covert visuospatial attention-selective processing of information in the absence of eye movements-preserved in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? Previous findings are inconclusive due to inconsistent terminology and suboptimal methodology. To settle this question, we used well-established spatial cueing protocols to investigate the perceptual effects of voluntary and involuntary attention on an orientation discrimination task for a group of adults with ADHD and their neurotypical age-matched and gender-matched controls. In both groups, voluntary attention significantly improved accuracy and decreased reaction times at the relevant location, but impaired accuracy and slowed reaction times at irrelevant locations, relative to a distributed attention condition. Likewise, involuntary attention improved accuracy and speeded responses. Critically, the magnitudes of all these orienting and reorienting attention effects were indistinguishable between groups. Thus, these counterintuitive findings indicate that spatial covert attention remains functionally intact in adults with ADHD.

SUBMITTER: Roberts M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5971124 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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When attention is intact in adults with ADHD.

Roberts Mariel M Ashinoff Brandon K BK Castellanos F Xavier FX Carrasco Marisa M

Psychonomic bulletin & review 20180801 4

Is covert visuospatial attention-selective processing of information in the absence of eye movements-preserved in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? Previous findings are inconclusive due to inconsistent terminology and suboptimal methodology. To settle this question, we used well-established spatial cueing protocols to investigate the perceptual effects of voluntary and involuntary attention on an orientation discrimination task for a group of adults with ADHD and thei ...[more]

PMID: 29181782

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Project description:Extant studies suggest that children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may make more errors and respond more slowly on tasks that require them to identify emotions based on facial affect. It is unclear, however, whether these findings reflect a unique deficit in emotion recognition, or more general difficulty with choice-response tasks (i.e., tasks that require participants to select among a set of competing options). In addition, ADHD is associated with executive dysfunction, but there is inconsistent evidence regarding the extent to which top-down cognitive control is involved in emotion recognition. The current study used a series of four counterbalanced tasks to systematically manipulate emotional content and working memory demands to determine (a) whether children with ADHD exhibit a unique facial affect recognition deficit and (b) the extent to which facial affect recognition is an automatic versus controlled process that depends in part on working memory. Bayesian results from a carefully phenotyped sample of 64 children ages 8 to 13 (M = 10.42, SD = 1.56; 26 girls; 67% Caucasian/non-Hispanic) with ADHD (n = 35) and without ADHD (n = 29) indicated that working memory is involved in children's ability to efficiently infer emotional state from facial affect (BF??= 4.59 × 10¹?). Importantly, there was significant evidence against deficits in emotion recognition for children with ADHD. The ADHD/non-ADHD groups were statistically equivalent in terms of recognition accuracy (BF?? = 1.32 × 10??, d = -0.18), and the ADHD group's slower recognition speed was parsimoniously explained by difficulty with choice-response tasks rather than unique to emotional stimuli (BF?? = 3.23, d = 0.31). These findings suggest that emotion recognition abilities are intact in children with ADHD, and highlight the need to control for impaired bottom-up (choice-response) and top-down abilities (working memory) when investigating emotional functioning in ADHD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Dataset Information

When attention is intact in adults with ADHD.

Publications

When attention is intact in adults with ADHD.

Similar Datasets

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