PARALLEL AND SERIAL ATTENTIONAL PROCESSES IN ADHD - ERP EVIDENCE

We studied selective attention in children with attention deficit hype ractivity disorder (ADHD) and control children performing parallel and serial visual search tasks. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were reco rded from 21 ADHD and 21 control children, ranging in age from 7 to 10 years old. The children with ADHD were tested during a 4-week double- blind medication assessment. Parallel processing was assessed with 2 p op-out tasks, and serial processing with a conjunction of features tas k. The children made a button press to target stimuli. There were no d ifferences in reaction times between groups. There were decreases in l atency of the ERP component, the P3, with age and task; between groups shorter latencies were seen for the children with ADHD with the seria l task. We suggest that their faster P3 latencies in the serial task a re due to a preference for automatic rather than controlled processes.