ADHD and behavioral inhibition: A re-examination of the stop-signal task

    Authors

    R. M. Alderson; M. D. Rapport; D. E. Sarver;M. J. Kofler

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    J. Abnorm. Child Psychol.

    Keywords

    attention-deficit; hyperactivity disorder; ADHD; behavioral inhibition; stop-signal task; ATTENTION-DEFICIT/HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER; DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY; DISORDER; EXECUTIVE FUNCTION; CHILDREN; VALIDITY; MODEL; PERSISTENCE; RESPONSES; PARADIGM; VERSION; Psychology, Clinical; Psychology, Developmental

    Abstract

    The current study investigates two recently identified threats to the construct validity of behavioral inhibition as a core deficit of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) based on the stop-signal task: calculation of mean reaction time from go-trials presented adjacent to intermittent stop-trials, and non-reporting of the stop-signal delay metric. Children with ADHD (n = 12) and typically developing (TD) children (n = 11) were administered the standard stop-signal task and three variant stop-signal conditions. These included a no-tone condition administered without the presentation of an auditory tone; an ignore-tone condition that presented a neutral (i.e., not associated with stopping) auditory tone; and a second ignore-tone condition that presented a neutral auditory tone after the tone had been previously paired with stopping. Children with ADHD exhibited significantly slower and more variable reaction times to go-stimuli, and slower stop-signal reaction times relative to TD controls. Stop-signal delay was not significantly different between groups, and both groups' go-trial reaction times slowed following meaningful tones. Collectively, these findings corroborate recent meta-analyses and indicate that previous findings of stop-signal performance deficits in ADHD reflect slower and more variable responding to visually presented stimuli and concurrent processing of a second stimulus, rather than deficits of motor behavioral inhibition.

    Journal Title

    Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology

    Volume

    36

    Issue/Number

    7

    Publication Date

    1-1-2008

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    989

    Last Page

    998

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000259436500003

    ISSN

    0091-0627

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