Event-Related Potential Study of Attention Regulation During Illusory Figure Categorization Task in ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Typical Children

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are very common developmental disorder that share some similar symptoms of social, emotional, and attentional deficits. This study is aimed to help understand the differences and similarities of these deficits using analysis of dense-array event-related potentials (ERP) during an illusory figure recognition task. Although ADHD and ASD seem very distinct, they have been shown to share some similarities in their symptoms. Our hypothesis was that children with ASD will show less pronounced differences in ERP responses to target and nontarget stimuli as compared to typical children and, to a lesser extent, ADHD. Participants were children with ASD (N=16), ADHD (N=16), and controls (N=16). EEG was collected using a 128-channel EEG system. The task involved the recognition of a specific illusory shape, in this case a square or triangle, created by three or four inducer disks. There were no between-group differences in reaction t...