Abstract: In recent 30 years, continued attention has been paid to the "cool" areas of executive function (“cool”EF) of the cognitive deficit mechanisms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In order to reveal the mechanisms of EF deficits of ADHD more comprehensively, this article reconsiders EF in light of distinctions between "hot" and "cool" executive function. It takes a brief review of the diagnosis, physiological basis and several theoretical models of ADHD, and focuses on the differences in the performance of ADHD children from the aspects of the classic "cool" and "hot" executive function tasks. It is found that ADHD children are not laggard in all types of "hot" EF tasks. The involving of “hot” EF promotes the performance in the “cool” EF task of ADHD, which depends on the involvement of emotion and motivation bringing a negative or a positive impact on different task scenarios. Likewise, the article compares and analyzes several theoretical explanations related to the “hot” EF of ADHD.

Key words: ADHD, “cool” EF, “hot” EF, motivation