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Updated: Mar 7, 2026

Comparing Eye-tracking Data of Children with High-functioning ASD, Comorbid ADHD, and of a Control Watching Social Videos
Published on: December 7, 2018
Controlling attention to gaze and arrows in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Andrea Marotta1, Augusto Pasini2, Erica Menotti3
1Department of Experimental Psychology and Physiology of Behaviour, Mind, Brain, and Behavior Research Center, University of Granada, Granada, Spain; Dipartimento di Psicologia, "Sapienza" Università di Roma, Italy.
Abstract:
The aim of this research was to assess implicit processing of social and non-social distracting cues in children with ADHD. Young people with ADHD and matched controls were asked to classify target words (LEFT/RIGHT) which were accompanied by a distracter eye-gaze or arrow. Typically developing participants showed evidence of interference effects from both eye-gaze and arrow distracters. In contrast, the ADHD group showed evidence of interference effects from arrow but failed to show interference from eye-gaze. This absence of interference effects from eye-gaze observed in the participants with ADHD may reflect an attentional impairment in attending to socially relevant information.

