Saccadic movement deficiencies in adults with ADHD tendencies

Abstract The goal of the present study was to explore deficits in gaze detection and emotional value judgment during a saccadic eye movement task in adults with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) tendencies. Thirty-two participants, consisting of 16 ADHD tendencies and 16 controls, were recruited from a pool of 243 university students. Among the many problems in adults with ADHDs, our research focused on the deficits in the processing of nonverbal cues, such as gaze direction and the emotional value of others’ faces. In Experiment 1, a cue display containing a face with emotional value and gaze direction was followed by a target display containing two faces located on the left and right side of the display. The participant’s task was to make an anti-saccade opposite to the gaze direction if the cue face was not emotionally neutral. ADHD tendencies showed more overall errors than controls in making anti-saccades. Based on the hypothesis that the exposure duration of the cue display in Experiment 1 may have been too long, we presented the cue and target display simultaneously to prevent participants from preparing saccades in advance. Participants in Experiment 2 were asked to make either a pro-saccade or an anti-saccade depending on the emotional value of the central cue face. Interestingly, significant group differences were observed for errors of omission and commission. In addition, a significant three-way interaction among groups, ...
Source: ADHD Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorders - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research