Emotion-Cognition Interactions in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Increased Early Attention Capture and Weakened Attentional Control in Emotional Contexts

Abstract

Background: Emotion dysregulation is a key dimensional trait in psychopathology. It is of particular interest in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) because individual differences in emotion dysregulation predict impairment. Despite growing recognition of its importance, an understanding of emotional functioning in ADHD needs to be better integrated with the well-known nonemotional attentional impairments in the disorder. Here, we assess differences in early, reactive and later, regulatory attention to emotional stimuli, as well as how impairments in attentional control to nonemotional stimuli are affected under different emotional contexts.

Methods: In all, 130 adolescents (n_ADHD = 61) completed an emotional go/no-go task while 32-channel electroencephalography data were recorded. Reaction time and accuracy were analyzed using the linear ballistic accumulator model.

Results: The multimethod approach provided convergent evidence of increased early, reactive attention capture and overarousal (faster drift rates, increased P1) by positively valenced stimuli in ADHD, but no differences in later attention to emotional stimuli. Overarousal in positive-valence contexts appeared to exacerbate existing ADHD-related impairments in attentional control to nonemotional stimuli as well (reduced N2 amplitude). In contrast, positive-valence contexts facilitated attentional control to nonemotional stimuli for typically developing adolescents.

Conclusions: Results highlight the dynamic interaction of emotion with attentional control in ADHD. Distinguishing reactive and regulatory contributions to emotion dysregulation has been informative for clarifying mechanisms and spurring the development of novel interventions in other disorders. It can be informative in ADHD as well.

Keywords: ADHD; Cognitive control; EEG; Emotion dysregulation; Event-related potentials; Sequential sampling models.

Figure 1.

Experimental Task depicted for the Happy condition.

Figure 2.

Panels A and B show violin plots depicting posterior difference distributions for the effects of emotion conditions (Happy - Neutral, Fear - Neutral) for the Control (light grey) and ADHD (dark grey) groups. These are presented as box plots of difference distribution samples surrounded by density plots of the same samples. Panel C illustrates the effects of the positive emotion condition on the LBA model parameters for each group.

Figure 3.

Effects of emotion condition on ERPs. Panels A and B show the ERP waveforms for each diagnostic group. Panel C shows the scalp topography for the emotion-neutral differences in each group. Scalp topography of the main effects for each emotion condition are in Table S1.

Figure 4.

Effects of emotion condition on the no-go N2 ERP, which is related to cognitive control. Panels A and B show the ERP waveforms for each diagnostic group. Panel C shows the scalp topography for the happy-neutral condition. Scalp topography of the main effects for each emotion condition are in Table S1.