Hyperactive ADHD symptoms are associated with increased variability in thought content in less constrained contexts

Abstract

The current study used two complementary methods to examine whether hyperactive and inattentive ADHD symptoms are differentially linked to thought dynamics under contexts that differ in the extent to which constraints are placed on ongoing thoughts. First, participants voiced aloud their thoughts in real-time (i.e., Think Aloud task), under two conditions varying in the levels of constraints exerted on their thoughts. Individuals with more hyperactive symptoms displayed heightened variability in thought content only in the less constrained condition. Second, participants completed seven days of ecological momentary assessment during which they received six thought probes daily asking the extent to which their thoughts were freely moving (as a proxy for thought content variability) and a question that captured different levels of constraints. Hyperactive symptoms were positively associated with freely moving thoughts only during responses that corresponded with lower levels of constraints. Across two approaches, we provide converging evidence that hyperactive, but not inattentive, ADHD symptoms are associated with increased thought content variability during lower levels of deliberate constraints on thoughts. Together, these results support the Dynamic Framework of Spontaneous Thought and highlight the importance of considering context in the study of thought dynamics in ADHD.

Keywords: ADHD; Ecological momentary assessment; Mind wandering; Spontaneous thought; Think aloud; Thought dynamics.

Fig. 1

Schematic and Conceptual Representations of the Tasks. (a) Study Component 1: Think Aloud task. The top left panel represents the Think Aloud paradigm. Participants were asked to voice aloud their thoughts in real-time either without a prompt (unconstrained Think Aloud) or with a prompt to think about family or friends (constrained Think Aloud). We present an example of one portion of a transcript, with each color indicating a separate thought. The top right panel illustrates the level of deliberate constraints associated with the two versions, with the unconstrained Think Aloud exerting lower levels of deliberate constraints compared to the constrained Think Aloud. (b) Study Component 2: Ecological momentary assessment. The bottom left panel represents the questions asked at each probe. Participants received 6 probes a day for 7 days asking them to report on the task-relatedness of their thoughts, as an index of levels of deliberate constraints, as well as the degree to which they were freely moving, as an index of thought variability. The bottom right panel illustrates the level of deliberate constraints associated with task-related and unintentional task-unrelated thoughts, with unintentional task-unrelated presumably exerting lower levels of deliberate constraints than task-related thoughts. Overall, it was hypothesized that thought dynamics would be more pronounced in situations of lower deliberate constraint (unconstrained Think Aloud and unintentional task-unrelated thoughts).

Fig. 2

Planned simple slope main effects analyses predicting variability in thought content based on hyperactive symptoms in the (a) Think Aloud and (b) Ecological Momentary Assessment components. Variability in thought content was indexed by the factor score in the Think Aloud task and the ratings of the freely moving thought question in the Ecological Momentary Assessment component. These planned simple main effects analyses indicate higher levels of hyperactive symptoms correspond with increased variability in thought content in the conditions with lower levels of deliberate constraints in both the (a) Think-Aloud (i.e., the unconstrained condition in red) and the (b) Ecological Momentary Assessments (i.e. task-unrelated thoughts in red).