ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B

Acta Psychologica Sinica ›› 2020, Vol. 52 ›› Issue (6): 777-785.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00777

• Reports of Empirical Studies • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in internal and external conflicts: Evidence from Saccade task

LI Yaojin, ZHANG Wei(), FU Bei, ZHOU Bingping   

  1. School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Wuhan 430079, China
  • Received:2019-07-11 Published:2020-06-25 Online:2020-04-22
  • Contact: Wei ZHANG E-mail:zhangwei2008@mail.ccnu.edu.cn

Abstract:

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a childhood onset disorder with the cardinal features of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. And the core symptoms of ADHD in childhood will gradually change into more serious neurological disorders in adulthood. Thus, it is necessary to study the pathological and physiological mechanisms of adult ADHD patients. Compared with normal people, patients with ADHD have stronger exogenous stimulation drive ability and weaker endogenous control ability. Therefore, the reason why ADHD in adults is susceptible to external interference is whether the level of response generated exogenous stimulation is too strong or the level of response generated by endogenous driving is too weak.

Twenty-six adult ADHD patients were screened by adult ADHD self-reporting scale (ASRS) as ADHD group, and 25 normal adult participants were selected as control group. Three experimental paradigms of saccade (reverse saccade, memory-oriented saccade and visual-oriented saccade) were used to investigate the ability of endogenous and exogenous saccade conversion and the ability of endogenous and exogenous saccade production and maintenance.

The results showed that the response level of adult ADHD patients to endogenous stimulation was lower than that of exogenous stimulation in reverse saccade experiment; in memory-oriented saccade experiment, the ability of adult ADHD patients to produce and maintain endogenous saccade was not significantly lower than that of normal subjects; in visual-oriented saccade experiment, the ability of adult ADHD to produce and maintain exogenous saccades was significantly better than that of normal subjects.

Therefore, the level of response of adult ADHD from endogenous stimuli is indeed lower than that produced by exogenous stimuli. Adult ADHD is susceptible to exogenous visual interference and is more likely to be caused by excessive levels of response from exogenous stimuli.

Key words: adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, saccade, exogenous and endogenous stimulation, conflict of stimulation response level

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