comparative study of sustained attentional bias on emotional processing in adhd children to pictures with eye-tracking

how to cite this article: pishyareh e, tehrani-doost m, mahmoodi-gharaie j, khorrami a, rahmdar sr. a comparative study of sustained attentional bias on emotional processing in adhd children to pictures with eye-tracking. iran j child neurol. 2015 winter;9(1):64-70. abstract objective adhd children have anomalous and negative behavior especially in emotionally related fields when compared to other. evidence indicates that attention has an impact on emotional processing. the present study evaluates the effect of emotional processing on the sustained attention of children with adhd type c. materials & methods sixty participants form two equal groups (each with 30 children) of normal and adhd children) and each subject met the required selected criterion as either a normal or an adhd child. both groups were aged from 6–11-years-old. all pictures were chosen from the international affective picture system (iaps) and presented paired emotional and neutral scenes in the following categories: pleasant-neutral; pleasant-unpleasant; unpleasant-neutral; and neutral–neutral. sustained attention was evaluated based on the number and duration of total fixation and was compared between the groups with manova analysis. results the duration of sustained attention on pleasant in the pleasant-unpleasant pair was significant. bias in duration of sustained attention on pleasant scenes in pleasant-neutral pairs is significantly different between the groups. conclusion such significant differences might be indicative of adhd children deficiencies in emotional processing. it seems that the highly deep effect of emotionally unpleasant scenes to gain the focus of adhd children’s attention is responsible for impulsiveness and abnormal processing of emotional stimuli.   references 1. sadock, b.j., h.i. kaplan, and v.a. sadock, kaplan & sadcok’s synopsis of psychiatry: behavioral sciences, clinical psychiatry. lippincott; williams & wilkins. 2003. 2. cormier, e., attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a review and update. journal of pediatric nursing, 2008. 23(5): p. 345-357. 3. casey, r.j., emotional competence in children with externalizing and internalizing disorders. emotional development in atypical children 1996: p. 161-183. 4. cadesky, e.b., v.l. mota, and r.j. schachar, beyond words: how do children with adhd and/or conduct problems process nonverbal information about affect? journal of the american academy of child & adolescent psychiatry 2000. 39(9): p. 1160-1167. 5. norbury, c., et al., eye-movement patterns are associated with communicative competence in autistic spectrum disorders. journal of child psychology and psychiatry 2009. 50(7): p. 834-842. 6. vike e. the perception of emotional expressions in incarcerated youth 2002. 7. oades, r., frontal, temporal and lateralized brain function in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: a psychophysiological and neuropsychological viewpoint on development. behavioural brain research 1998; 94(1): p. 83-95. 8. singh sd, et al. recognition of facial expressions of emotion by children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. behavior modification 1998. 22(2): p. 128-142. 9. yuill n, lyon j. selective difficulty in recognizing facial expressions of emotion in boys with adhd. european child & adolescent psychiatry  2007;16(6):398-404. 10. ledoux j. emotion circuits in the brain. annual review of neuroscience 2000;12(1):155-184. 11. da fonseca, d., et al., emotion understanding in children with adhd. child psychiatry & human development 2009; 40(1):111-121. 12. guevremont dc, dumas md. peer relationship problems and disruptive behavior disorders. journal of emotional and behavioral disorders 1994; 2(3):164. 13. tucha l, et al. vigilance and sustained attention in children and adults with adhd. journal of attention disorders 2009;12(5): 410. 14. barry, t.d., robert d. lyman, and l.g. klinger, academic underachievement and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: the negative impact of symptom severity on school performance. journal of school psychology 2002;40(3):259-283. 15. douglas vi. stop, look and listen: the problem of sustained attention and impulse control in hyperactive and normal children. canadian journal of behavioural science/revue canadienne des sciences du comportement. 1972; 4(4):259. 16. lang p, bradley m, cuthbert b. international affective picture system (iaps): technical manual and affective ratings. nimh center for the study of emotion and attention, 1997. 17. watts se, weems . cf. associations among selective attention, memory bias, cognitive errors and symptoms of anxiety in youth. journal of abnormal child psychology 2006; 34(6):838-849. 18. nummenmaa l, hyo¨na j, calvo mg. eye movement assessment of selective attentional capture by emotional pictures. emotion 2006; 6(2):257-268. 19. kiss m, et al. efficient attentional selection predicts distractor devaluation: event-related potential evidence for a direct link between attention and emotion. j cogn neurosci 2007. 19(8): p. 1316-22. 20. kinsbourne m, bemporad b. lateralization of emotion: a model and the evidence. the psychobiology of affective development, 1984: p. 259-291. 21. da fonseca d, et al. emotion understanding in children with adhd. child psychiatry and human development 2009; 40(1): 111-121. 22. calvo mg, lang pj. gaze patterns when looking at emotional pictures: motivationally biased attention . motivation and emotion 2004; 28:221-243. 23. armony jl, dolan rj. modulation of spatial attention by fear-conditioned stimuli: an event-related fmri study. neuropsychologia 2002; 40(7): p. 817-826. 24. kanske, p., exploring executive attention in emotion: erp and fmri evidence2008: max planck inst. for human cognitive and brain sciences. 25. whalen ck, henker b. attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders. handbook of child psychopathology 1998; 3: 181-211. 26. shaywitz ba, shaywitz se. comorbidity: a critical issue in attention deficit disorder. journal of child neurology 1991; 6(1 suppl): s13. 27. pennington bf,ozonoff s. executive functions and developmental psychopathology. journal of child psychology and psychiatry 1996. 37(1): p. 51-87. 28. vike e. the perception of emotional expressions in incarcerated youth 2001. 29. deans p, et al. use of eye movement tracking in the differential diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) and reading disability psychology 2010; 1: 238-246. 31. caseras x, et al., biases in visual orienting to negative and positive scenes in dysphoria: an eye movement study. journal of abnormal psychology 2007; 116(3): 491. 32. eizenman m, et al. a naturalistic visual scanning approach to assess selective attention in major depressive disorder. psychiatry research 2003; 118(2):117-128. 33. kellough j, et al. time course of selective attention in clinically depressed young adults: an eye tracking study. behaviour research and therapy 2008; 46(11): 1238-1243. 34. krauel k, et al. emotional memory in adhd patients with and without comorbid odd/cd. journal of neural transmission 2009; 116(1):117-120.