Post-error adjustments and ADHD symptoms in adults: The effect of laterality and state regulation

Abstract

Evidence is accumulating that individuals with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) do not adjust their responses after committing errors. Post-error response adjustments are taken to reflect, among others, error monitoring that is essential for learning, flexible behavioural adaptation, and achieving future goals. Many behavioural studies have suggested that atypical lateral brain functions and difficulties in allocating effort to protect performance against stressors (i.e., state regulation) are key factors in ADHD. Whether these factors contribute to the absence of post-error response adjustments in ADHD is unknown. The aim of the present study is to investigate the contribution of the left and right hemispheres and the deficiency in effort allocation to deviant post-error processing in adults with high ADHD symptoms. From a pool of 87 university students, two groups were formed: a group with higher (n=30) and a group with lower (n=26) scores on the ADHD index subscale of the Conners' Adult ADHD Rating Scales. The groups performed a lateralized lexical decision task with a fast and slower stimulus presentation rate. Post-error slowing and post-error response accuracy to stimuli presented in the left and right visual field were measured in each stimulus presentation rate. Results indicated that subjects with the lower ADHD scores slowed down and improved their response accuracy after errors, especially when stimuli were presented in the right visual field at the slower rate. In contrast, subjects with the higher ADHD scores showed no post-error adjustments. Results suggest that during lexical decision performance, impaired error processing in adults with ADHD is associated with affected ability of the left hemisphere to compensate for errors, especially when extra effort allocation is needed to meet task demands.

Error monitoring and daily life executive functioning

“…Alternatively, our RT data is in line with another response strategy; wherein, participants set a deadline for themselves to give an appropriate motor response. Here, once this deadline is passed they might give careless (and likely incorrect) responses (Mohamed et al 2016). PES, in this case, may reflect an extended deadline to increase the time needed for thoughtful information processing and consequently more accurate responses.…”

“…Participants were given a lexical decision task used in our previous work (see Mohamed et al 2016). The task was designed using E-prime software version 2.0.…”

“…A recent study by Lin et al (2018) showed that the EFI scale, as a measure of executive functions, was related to critical and creative thinking. The scale was used to study ADHD and autistic traits in the non-clinical population (Ferraro et al 2018; Mohamed et al 2016). However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has directly tested the association between the EFI and external markers of executive functions in a healthy population.…”

Error-Related Dynamics of Reaction Time and Frontal Midline Theta Activity in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) During a Subliminal Motor Priming Task

“…With respect to the RT findings, the fact that responses were speeded prior to and during errors across groups indicates that RT dynamics were likely shaped by a speed-accuracy trade-off (Dudschig and Jentzsch, 2009), as described in the “Introduction” section, that is, errors can be thought of as premature, hasty responses (Scheffers and Coles, 2000), rather than resulting from decision uncertainty and subsequent guessing, which would result in slowed error responses, as predicted by the so-called deadline model (Ruthruff, 1996; Mohamed et al, 2016).…”

Performance monitoring and post-error adjustments in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: an EEG analysis

“…[23][24][25][26] Functional imaging studies have confirmed alterations in the action-monitoring network of unmedicated patients with ADHD, with reduced activation in medial and lateral prefrontal areas on error trials. 27,28 Moreover, in a behavioural study, Yordanova and colleagues 29 found that adolescents with ADHD showed increased behavioural instability in trials following incorrect responses ("post-error trials"), with respect to increased error rates and reaction time (RT) variability, indicating difficulties with the behavioural adjustments usually initiated after response errors (see also Wiersema and colleagues, 25 Schachar and colleagues 30 and Mohamed and colleagues 31 ). However, the neurobiological correlates underlying this altered posterror behaviour have rarely been investigated.…”