What is it about?

Traditional attention tasks in ADHD may not fully reflect everyday demands. In this study, 64 adults (34 with ADHD and 30 neurotypical) completed 10 virtual reality tasks designed to assess different types of attention: sustained, selective, divided and switching attention. Tasks represented everyday scenes, such as a living room, lecture hall, street, and lab. Participants also completed measures of ADHD traits, speech fluency, phonological working memory and questionnaires. The results showed that the ADHD group had the clearest difficulties with sustained attention, particularly during a continuous-performance task in a virtual lecture hall.

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Why is it important?

This study is one of the first to examine several forms of attention within the same virtual reality-based assessment. By placing participants in realistic, interactive environments, virtual reality may help researchers investigate how attention operates in situations that more closely resemble everyday activities. The findings suggest that attention difficulties in ADHD may depend on the type of attention being assessed. Virtual reality could therefore complement existing assessment methods and support the development of more targeted approaches to understanding attention difficulties.

Perspectives

I found this project particularly valuable because it brought together attention research, virtual reality and real-world behavioural demands. Developing and testing 10 immersive tasks provided an opportunity to explore how different forms of attention may operate in more realistic environments. I hope this work encourages further research using larger clinical samples and helps contribute to assessment approaches that are more ecologically relevant, detailed and responsive to individual differences.

Dr Fjorda Kazazi
University College London

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This page is a summary of: Virtual Reality Attention Tasks in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: I. Behavioural Responses, European Journal of Neuroscience, September 2026, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/ejn.70691.
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