Influence of emotional stimulus valence on inhibitory control in adults with and without ADHD

Abstract

Human behavior is influenced both by approach and avoidance automatic reactions to positive and negative stimulus, respectively, but these reactions have not been well studied in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) patients. Moreover, studies employing spatial stimulus-response compatibility tasks in ADHD and healthy control (HC) subjects are scarce and inconclusive. The present study investigated inhibitory control and emotional processing in ADHD adults with a modified stimulus-response compatibility task in which spatial and emotional features of affective stimuli had to be processed together to select the correct response. Manual responses to figures of Favorite and Rival soccer team players were measured, and compatible or incompatible responses were chosen according to the soccer team figure. Eighteen HC participants and sixteen ADHD adults performed the task. We found an ordinary spatial compatibility effect for the Favorite soccer team and a reversed one for the Rival team in the ADHD group but not in the HC group. The effects may be due to stronger approach and withdrawal reactions toward the Favorite soccer team and away from the Rival one, respectively, indicating poor inhibitory control for the ADHD group. These results show that differences between ADHD and HC subjects become prominent when response selection involves both emotional and spatial features of the stimulus.

Flowers and spiders in spatial stimulus-response compatibility: does affective valence influence selection of task-sets or selection of responses?

“…Consistent with this idea, their study showed a standard spatial SRC effect when stimuli were the favourite team (positive stimuli), but a reversed effect when stimuli were the rival team (negative stimuli). Cavallet et al (2016) replicated these results with ADHD patients.…”

Tarefa de compatibilidade espacial afetiva como modelo de estudo do comportamento emocional

“…Pesqui. | Juiz de Fora | 14(4) | 76-101 | 2020DOI: 10.34019/1982-1247 Nascimento, P. F. D., Lameira (Cavallet et al, 2016;Conde et al, 2011Conde et al, , 2014a.…”

“…Nesse contexto, uma das primeiras articulações entre os dados comportamentais da TCEA com medidas fisiológicas surgiu no trabalho de Cavallet et al (2016), que teve o objetivo de estudar o controle inibitório e o processamento emocional em adultos com TDAH através da TCEA. Cavallet et al (2016) empregaram um desenho semelhante ao proposto por Conde et al (2011Conde et al ( , 2014a DOI: 10.34019/1982DOI: 10.34019/ -1247DOI: 10.34019/ .2020 Nascimento, P. F. D., Lameira Nascimento e colaboradores (2020), observando que os trabalhos anteriores utilizaram apenas figuras com valências afetivas (jogadores de futebol, flores e aranhas), investigaram se o protocolo poderia ser validado para o estudo de sistemas semânticos da leitura. Para isso, adaptaram a TCEA com estímulos linguísticos (palavras), mas com valência emocional associada.…”

“…Noutra perspectiva, a TCEA mostra a direção para o desenvolvimento de ferramentas que auxiliem no diagnóstico e tratamento de patologias que afetam os sistemas neurais e comportamentais, como o TDAH e o Transtorno do Espectro Autista. Em geral, os indivíduos com estes transtornos tendem a apresentar reatividade emocional excessiva e déficit do controle inibitório, o que acaba por afetar a execução da resposta adequada na TCEA (Cavallet et al, 2016).…”

Affective influences without approach-avoidance actions: on the congruence between valence and stimulus-response mappings

“…In a block of trials, participants responded to positive stimuli by pressing spatially compatible response keys, but to negative stimuli by pressing spatially incompatible response keys ( positive-compatible/negative-incompatible assignment ); in another block, the assignment of avatars’ uniforms to compatible and incompatible mappings was reversed ( negative-compatible/positive-incompatible assignment ). The researchers compared spatially compatible and incompatible trials for positive and negative stimuli separately, and found a standard SRC effect for positive stimuli but a reversed SRC effect (favoring spatially noncorresponding responses to the stimulus locations) for negative stimuli (see also Cavallet et al, 2016, a replication with ADHD patients). The researchers proposed that pressing keys that correspond to the stimulus location is equivalent to “approaching” actions toward the stimuli, whereas pressing keys that do not correspond to the stimulus location is equivalent to “avoiding” actions.…”