Deficits in Working Memory and Theory of Mind May Underlie Difficulties in Social Perception of Children with ADHD

Samane Imanipour; Mahmood Sheikh; Monir Shayestefar; Tourandokht Baloochnejad

doi:10.1155/2021/3793750

Deficits in Working Memory and Theory of Mind May Underlie Difficulties in Social Perception of Children with ADHD

Neurol Res Int. 2021 Aug 28:2021:3793750. doi: 10.1155/2021/3793750. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Samane Imanipour¹, Mahmood Sheikh², Monir Shayestefar^{3

4}, Tourandokht Baloochnejad⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Sport Science, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Jahrom University, Jahrom, Iran.
² Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
³ Department of Neuroscience, Faculty of Advanced Technology in Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁴ Sport Medicine Research Center, Neuroscience Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁵ Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are prone to peer rejection and disliking due to difficulties in social perception and interaction. To address social perception impairments in ADHD, we examined children with ADHD in a noisy biological motion (BM) direction discrimination paradigm in association with sociocognitive factors including emotion regulation, theory of mind (TOM), and working memory compared to healthy controls. Our results showed that children with ADHD were poorer in discriminating BM direction in noisy environments (F (1, 36) = 4.655, p=0.038). Moreover, a significant correlation was found between working memory and TOM with BM discrimination in an ADHD group (r = 0.442, p=0.01, and r = 0.403, p=0.05, respectively). Our findings could suggest that social perception in noisy scenarios may be affected by memory and social cognitive abilities of children with ADHD.