The Interference Of Distractors In Attentional Blink Of ADHD Adults

Attentional blink (AB) is an important selective attention on the time dimension.Two kinds of theories are mainly account for attentional blink:attention resource-limited theory and central executive control theory. Temporary loss of control(TLC),a kind of central executive control theory, is widely recognized and accepted. TLC assumes that attentional blink roots in the limited capacity of central executive control, easy to be interfered by distractors. Most previous studies explored attentional blink in normal subjects, only there studies refered to ADHD children and adolescents,none was about ADHD adults. As widely confirmed, ADHD patients are damaged in central executive control, thus may suffer more serious attentional blink Then this study aims to explore the interference of distractors in attentional blink of ADHD adutlts and verify the mechanism of attentional blink at the same time. In this goal, our research mainly divided into the following two:The first part study compares the general interference of distractors in attentional blink of ADHD adutlts with that of normal adults. The results show that all subjects display an "attentional blink" effect and their attentional blink is interfered by distractors, with that they perform a smaller "attentional blink" effect in the low level of interference, whereas have a larger "attentional blink" effect in the high level of interference. This consistent with what are assumed in TLC。On the basis of the first part study, the second part study compares the partial interference of distractors(before T1) in attentional blink of ADHD adutlts with that of normal adults. The results show that the "attentional blink" effect in the ADHD adutlts are the same as that in the normal adutlts in the low level of interference, whereas ADHD adutlts display a larger "attentional blink" effect relative to the normal adutlts in the high level of interference.Finally, we discuss the shortcomings in the study design and put forward the basic idea of future research.