Cognitive Control Over Visual Motion Processing - Are Children With ADHD Especially Compromised? A Pilot Study of Flanker Task Event-Related Potentials.

Performance deficits and diminished brain activity during cognitive control and error processing are frequently reported in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), indicating a "top-down" deficit in executive attention. So far, these findings are almost exclusively based on the processing of static visual forms, neglecting the importance of visual motion processing in everyday life as well as important attentional and neuroanatomical differences between processing static forms and visual motion. For the current study, we contrasted performance and electrophysiological parameters associated with cognitive control from two Flanker-Tasks using static stimuli and moving random dot patterns.

A flanker effect for moving visual stimuli.

Visual motion perception is essential for appropriate behavior in a dynamic visual world. It is influenced by voluntary attention towards or away from moving objects as well as by the capture of automatic attention by salient stimuli. Both kinds of attention play a major role in the Eriksen Flanker Task (EFT),where a central stimulus has to be identified in the presence of flanking distractors.