Error Awareness in Attention Deficit Disorder

For adaptive control it is needed that we have the ability for the detection and correction of our errors (O'Connell, Bellgrove, Dockree, Lau, Hester, Garavan et al., 2009). In recent time there is a lot of electrophysical research done on error monitoring as well as error awareness. It is argued that the human error processing system consists of pre-consciouss and conscious aspects as indicated by event-related potentials (ERP's). One ERP component is the ERN, or the error-related negativity. Another important ERP component is the error positivity, or Pe. Adults with ADHD were given an error awareness task, the so called Go/No-Go response inhibition task. The subjects were instructed to respond to a single Go trial and withold the other options. The block included 225 stimuli in which there were 200 Go stimuli and 25 No/Go stimuli. ERP's were recorded meanwhile from the participants scalp. The results of the experiment revealed that ADHD adults were less aware of their errors. In addition, their behavioral performance differed also from healthy control subjects associated with errors of commission. There was also a correlation found among diminished error awareness and the severity of the patients symptomalogy. Furthermore, error awareness rates in the patients were also related to errors of omission. It is argued that these kind of errors might be associated with patients' misidentification and off-task behavior (O'Connell et al., 2009). Also the results of the event-related potentials show abnormalities in adult patients with ADHD as compared to healthy control subjects. The both groups did however not differ in ERN amplitede, they did differ in the error positivity, the Pe. It is concluded from this experiment, based on the results, that adult patients with ADHD have a lack of error awareness.