“Turning down the heat”: Is poor performance of children with ADHD on tasks tapping “hot” emotional regulation caused by deficits in “cool” executive functions?

• It is debated whether emotional dysregulation in ADHD is due to generic EF deficits.
• Children with ADHD showed a deficit in interference control.
• Emotional stimuli did not exacerbate this interference control deficit.

Emotional dysregulation in daily life is very common in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is however not clear whether this reflects a specific deficit or that it may be the result of generic executive function (EF) deficits. The current study addresses this question by means of an emotional working memory (WM) task with 2 memory load conditions and four possible backgrounds (blank screen, neutral, positive or negative picture), which was administered to 38 typically developing children and 29 children with ADHD. Children responded slower on trials when negative pictures were presented at the background versus when neutral pictures were presented, indicating an emotional interference effect; however crucially, groups did not differ in this respect. Reaction times were also slower on trials with a neutral picture as background versus trials without a picture, with children with ADHD showing an enhanced interference effect. There was a main effect of WM load on performance, but it did not interact with interference or group effects. To summarize, the findings indicate a generic interference control deficit in the children with ADHD in the current sample, while they could not provide support for an emotional interference deficit.