Visuospatial orienting in working memory is preserved in adults with ADHD symptoms

Abstract People with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are reported to have pervasive deficits in working memory (WM), yet mechanistic explanations for such deficits are lacking. Research suggests that attentional mechanisms such as reward-based prioritisation and visuospatial orienting are intact in this population (Atkinson et al., 2025; Superbia-Guimarães et al., 2022, 2023). To further examine these mechanisms, we investigated the hypotheses that deficient visuospatial orienting during encoding and maintenance are at the root of WM deficits in adults with ADHD symptoms. Eighty-four symptomatic participants ( M age = 28.4 years, SD = 4.6) and 107 controls ( M age = 29.4, SD = 4.4) had their symptoms assessed with the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale. They each took part in one of two experiments involving an item (colour or unfamiliar shape) recognition memory task that incorporated pre- and retro-cues. Across both experiments, we found strong evidence of beneficial pre- and retro-cueing effects upon memory accuracy and reaction time (RT). However, we found no evidence for the expected group differences nor the interaction between symptom status and cueing condition. There was also no evidence for correlations between ADHD symptom scores, recognition accuracy, RT, and cueing benefits. Therefore, failure in attentional orienting is unlikely to explain deficits in WM in individuals with symptoms of ADHD.