Gaze measurements during viewing human dialogue scenes in adults with ADHD: Preliminary findings

Eye gaze measurement to human dialogue scenes in adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was investigated. We examined whether eye gaze measurement might be a biological marker of ADHD.

Twenty-two individuals with ADHD (mean age, 34.5 years) attending the outpatient clinic of Showa University Karasuyama Hospital were included in the study, and 26 healthy individuals (mean age, 32.6 years) with no history of mental disorders were used as the control group. For the participants, intellectual functioning was estimated using the Japanese Adult Reading Test, and mental symptoms were assessed using the Autism Spectrum Quotient and Conner's Adult ADHD Rating Scale. We extracted human dialogue scenes from two classic movies as visual stimuli and recorded the participant's gaze while watching these scenes using Tobii's eye tracker.

For gazing time, repeated measures analysis of variance showed no significant main effect of "group" and no significant interaction effect between "group" and areas of interest "(AOI)." In the normal group, gazing time at the eyes was significantly longer than those at the mouth, body, and background; in the ADHD group, gazing time at the eyes was significantly longer than only that at the background.

Given the different results obtained in the past in ASD, these results suggest that it would be necessary to directly compare the two groups to determine whether the gaze measurement shows significant differences in ASD and ADHD.