Objective: Inattention may contribute to emotion recognition deficits in children with ADHD. In the current study, we compared the viewing patterns for emotion stimuli between children with and without ADHD and examined the relationship between viewing patterns, emotion knowledge accuracy, response time, and ADHD symptoms.
Method: Eye-tracking technology recorded viewing patterns for emotion stimuli among 45 children (60% male; control n = 26, ADHD n = 19).
Results: Overall, viewing patterns of children with and without ADHD were strikingly similar; however, small to large effect sizes (Cohen's d = -0.73 to 0.93) across emotions suggest that, for some emotions, children with ADHD spend less time viewing relevant areas of images and take longer to respond (i.e., detect an emotion) compared with children without ADHD.
Conclusion: Children with ADHD view some emotions differently from children without ADHD. The results provide an important foundation for additional work in this area.
Keywords: ADHD; emotion knowledge; eye-tracking; visual attention.