Department of Psychology, Experimental Psychology/Neuro-Cognitive Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany.
J Abnorm Psychol. 2011 Nov;120(4):890-901. doi: 10.1037/a0024944. Epub 2011 Aug 22.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) persists frequently into adulthood. The decomposition of endophenotypes by means of experimental neuro-cognitive assessment has the potential to improve diagnostic assessment, evaluation of treatment response, and disentanglement of genetic and environmental influences. We assessed four parameters of attentional capacity and selectivity derived from simple psychophysical tasks (verbal report of briefly presented letter displays) and based on a "theory of visual attention." These parameters are mathematically independent, quantitative measures, and previous studies have shown that they are highly sensitive for subtle attention deficits. Potential reductions of attentional capacity, that is, of perceptual processing speed and working memory storage capacity, were assessed with a whole report paradigm. Furthermore, possible pathologies of attentional selectivity, that is, selection of task-relevant information and bias in the spatial distribution of attention, were measured with a partial report paradigm. A group of 30 unmedicated adult ADHD patients and a group of 30 demographically matched healthy controls were tested. ADHD patients showed significant reductions of working memory storage capacity of a moderate to large effect size. Perceptual processing speed, task-based, and spatial selection were unaffected. The results imply a working memory deficit as an important source of behavioral impairments. The theory of visual attention parameter working memory storage capacity might constitute a quantifiable and testable endophenotype of ADHD.
注意缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）在成年后经常持续存在。通过实验神经认知评估对表型进行分解，有可能改善诊断评估、治疗反应评估以及遗传和环境影响的分离。我们评估了四个注意力容量和选择性参数，这些参数来自简单的心理物理任务（短暂呈现的字母显示的口头报告），并基于“视觉注意理论”。这些参数是数学上独立的、定量的测量指标，先前的研究表明，它们对微妙的注意力缺陷非常敏感。使用全报告范式评估注意力容量的潜在减少，即感知处理速度和工作记忆存储容量。此外，使用部分报告范式测量注意力选择性的可能病理，即任务相关信息的选择和注意力空间分布的偏差。我们测试了一组 30 名未经药物治疗的成年 ADHD 患者和一组 30 名人口统计学匹配的健康对照者。ADHD 患者的工作记忆存储容量显著减少，具有中等至较大的效应量。感知处理速度、基于任务的和空间选择不受影响。结果表明工作记忆缺陷是行为障碍的重要来源。视觉注意理论参数工作记忆存储容量可能构成 ADHD 的可量化和可测试的表型。
