Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MA in Psychology

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Ester Navarro

Second Advisor

Robin Wellington

Abstract

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a widespread neurodevelopmental condition associated with significant academic difficulties, often resulting in students scoring a year below average on standardized examinations (Lawrence et al., 2020; Mohammadi et al., 2019). A proposed core feature of the disorder involves impairments in working memory (WM), specifically the Central Executive component responsible for attentional control (Alderson et al., 2013; Kofler et al., 2008). These WM operations are governed by two cognitive control modalities: proactive control (sustained, anticipatory maintenance) and reactive control (cue-driven, on-demand processing) (Braver et al., 2007). This quasi-experimental study investigated whether a natural tendency toward reactive control grants individuals with ADHD an advantage in novel tasks, which require the efficient release of proactive plans to avoid intention-based reflexivity (Meiran et al., 2012). Participants were compared using the DMCC Cued Task-Switching task (a novel task). The central hypothesis anticipated a crossover interaction where the ADHD group would exhibit enhanced performance or lower interference costs on the novel task compared to healthy controls (Brouwers et al., 2016; Meiran & Hsieh, 2011). A 2 (Group: ADHD, Control) × 2 (TRCE trials: switch, repeat) mixed factorial ANOVA and independent-samples t-tests were conducted on key interference measures. Results indicated a significant main effect of Trial Type, but no significant main effect of Group, and no significant Group × Trial Type interaction. Additionally, an independent- samples t-test examining switch TRCE revealed no significant group difference. These findings suggest that although switching context reliably modulated interference, ADHD participants did not differ from controls in overall interference magnitude or switching- related cognitive control, providing no support for the predicted crossover interaction.

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