Dissociable effects of positive feedback on the capture and inhibition of impulsive behavior in adolescents with ADHD versus typically developing adolescents

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated how enhancing motivation by delivering positive feedback (a smiley) after a successful trial could affect interference control in adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and in their typically developing (TD) peers. By using a Simon task within the theoretical framework of the “activation-suppression” model, we were able to separately investigate the expression and the inhibition of impulsive motor behavior. The experiment included 19 adolescents with ADHD and 20 TD adolescents in order to explore whether data found in adolescents with ADHD were similar to those found in TD adolescents. Participants performed the Simon task in two conditions: a condition with feedback delivered after each successful trial and a condition with no feedback. The main findings were that increasing motivation by delivering positive feedback increased impulsive response in both groups of adolescents. It also improved the efficiency of impulsive motor action inhibition in adolescents with ADHD but deteriorated it in TD adolescents. We suggest that 1/increased motivation could lead adolescents to favor fast responses even if incorrect, and 2/the differential effect of feedback on the selective suppression of impulsive motor action in both groups could be due to different baseline DA levels.

KEYWORDS:

• ADHD
• motivation
• interference control
• Simon task
• distributional analysis

Acknowledgments

The authors warmly thank all the adolescents who accepted to participate in this study as well as Isabel Charvin who helped for selecting and contacting participants. They also wish to thank Jennifer Coull for her help with English language.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ For information, the transformation of data did not change the results of the ANOVA..

² We first ran an ANOVA adding Order as a within-subject factor. There was no significant main effect of Order and the only significant interaction involving Order was the Order × Feedback interaction (F_1,35 = 32.49; p < .001): The effect of feedback was significant when participants performed the NO FB condition first (t₁₉ = 6.63; p < .001) but not when they performed the FB condition first (t₁₈ = 0.92; p = .18). It is likely due to the persistence of feedback effect. For sake of clarity, we did not report data of the ANOVA including factor Order.

³ We first ran an ANOVA adding Order as a within-subject factor. There was no significant main effect of Order and the only significant interaction involving Order was the Order × Feedback interaction (F_1,35 = 9.06; p < .01) : The effect of feedback was significant when participants performed the NO FB condition first (t₁₉ = 4.25; p < .01) but not when they performed the FB condition first (t₁₈ = 0.40; p = .65). It is likely due to the persistence of feedback effect. For sake of clarity, we did not report data of the ANOVA including factor Order.

⁴ This effect was found in 80% of adolescents with ADHD.

⁵ There was no effect of Order on the index of impulse capture..

⁶ The effect was observed in 61% of adolescents with ADHD.

⁷ The effect was observed in 75% of TD adolescents.

⁸ There was no effect of Order on the index of selective inhibition in both groups..

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.