UNIVERSITY OF MALTA
LIFE SCIENCE RESEARCH SEMINARS
Web: http://www.um.edu.mt/events/scisem/
Email: scisem@um.edu.mt
Abstract form
ADHD – Hypo-attentional or Hyper-attentional Disorder?
Nowell Zammit
“La Macarena”, St. Agatha street Zurrieq, (ZRQ2078)
99336297
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Email: nzamm@hotmail.com
Presentation date: 3rd January
Abstract
Explanations of attention date back to Aristotle, who considered attention as a
“narrowing of the senses”, representing the selective aspect of perception. Collaterally,
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – (ADHD), is a neurobehavioral developmental
disorder showing a marked impairment in the cognitive processes associated with the
ability to maintain attention. On the other hand, an emerging alternative explanation to
ADHD entails the paradigm of ‘Learned Inattention – involving the inability to actively to
suppress the processing of irrelevant stimuli. This model assumes two concepts: Latent
Inhibition (LI) (Lubow & Moore, 1959), referring to the delay in conditioning to a stimulus
after preexposure and Kamin Blocking Effect (KB) (Kamin, 1969) that refers to the
‘unlearning’ of a stimulus added during conditioning to another cue. Numerous research
has already established a relationship between KB and LI with other neuropsychiatric
disorders, such as OCD and schizophrenia. Moreover this model could also explain
neurochemical (dopamine) abnormalities present in some disorders, which hence also
makes it of neuropharmacological utility. Following this, we therefore want to explore the
effect of KB & LI within a group of maltese individuals diagnosed with ADHD, aged
between 6-14 years. Through utilizing a quantitative paradigm, we will make use of
software based KB and LI tests comprising of a series of visual discriminatory
conditioned association tests in addition to other structured questionnaires and analyze
its effect in relation to ADHD. Eventually findings will test a novel ‘hyper-attention’ model
of ADHD with strong implications to both theoretical and practical management of
ADHD, whilst also offering substantial diagnostic utility.