Preferential Choice to Exert Cognitive Effort in Children with ADHD: a Diffusion Modelling Account

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is often linked to a reduced sensitivity to the costs of effortful tasks.
• Previous research suggests motivational deficits may underlie ADHD-related behavioral challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate preferential choice in engaging in demanding tasks in children with and without ADHD.
• To utilize computational methods, specifically diffusion modeling, to analyze the decision-making process related to cognitive effort.

Main Methods:

• The cognitive effort discounting paradigm (COG-ED) was administered to children aged 8-12 with (n=49) and without (n=36) ADHD.
• Diffusion modeling was applied to choice data to examine affective decision-making processes.

Main Results:

• All children exhibited effort discounting, with no significant differences between groups in subjective value of effortful tasks or bias towards less effortful tasks.
• Children with ADHD demonstrated a less differentiated mental representation of task demand compared to their non-ADHD peers.
• Exposure and familiarity with effortful experiences were similar across both groups.

Conclusions:

• Findings challenge the notion that greater sensitivity to effort costs or reduced reward sensitivity explains ADHD.
• A global weakness in metacognitive monitoring of demand appears to be a more plausible mechanism underlying decision-making in ADHD.
• This metacognitive deficit impacts the cost-benefit analyses crucial for engaging cognitive control.