HP53 : Evaluating spatial cuing effects of social cues in children with ADHD: Pre-test of three versions of a neuropsychological tool in children without disorders

Our aim was to pre-test three versions of an evaluative tool designed to identify children with ADHD who are sensitive to cuing effects triggered by social cues (gaze and pointing finger).

Method: Children without disorders, aged from 7 to 9 years, had to press a button as soon as an object appeared on the screen, at the left or the right of an individual. In two thirds of the trials, the side of the object appearance was cued by the individual either by deviating her gaze or by pointing with her finger. In the first version (19 children), these congruent trials were compared to neutral trials in which the individual did not move before the object appearance. In the second version (18 children), congruent trials were compared to moving trials in which the individual pointed her finger towards the children before the object appearance. In the third version (15 children), congruent trials were compared to incongruent trials in which the individual gazed or pointed towards the opposite side of the object appearance.

Results: Congruent pointing finger triggered strong cuing effects compared to neutral, moving or incongruent trials. By contrast, the strength of the gaze cuing effect depended on the comparison trials. When compared to incongruent trials, congruent gazing and pointing led to similar and robust effects.

Conclusion: The version manipulating incongruent trials, which controls for alerting effect induced by gaze or finger movements respectively, was the most appropriate to measure social cuing effects and was chosen to calibrate the tool.