Perceptual load has been shown to be a significant modulator of distractibility. By exhausting one’s perceptual capacity, and thus limiting resources available for processing distractors, higher perceptual load can counter interindividual differences in distractibility, even equating groups with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to control groups (Fisher et al., 2023).

Here we ask whether perceptual load can also be seen to modulate the impact on distractibility of ADHD symptomatology within the general population - as assessed by the Adult ADHD Self-report Scale.

Participants were tested on a novel auditory oddball task comprising frequent standard tones, rare target tones that required a button-press response, and importantly rare task-irrelevant novel sounds that served as distractors. This task, coupled with EEG recording, was performed under a low load condition while fixating a fixation cross and under high load while playing an action video game.

Focusing on the frontal novelty P3, a suggested EEG-marker of ADHD in Marzinzik et al. (2012), we show greater amplitude responses to distracting auditory novels as ADHD scores increase at low load; yet, as predicted by the load theory, this effect was significantly diminished at high load. This was the case despite no detectable behavioral differences with ADHD symptomatology (as indexed by auditory target RTs or D-prime).

Such increased amplitudes under low load of the frontal novelty P3 in individuals with higher ADHD symptomatology is in line with the hypothesis of reduced frontal inhibitory control in ADHD.