Susceptibility to task-irrelevant auditory distractors in relation to visual working memory in children with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder associated with increased distractibility. Previous research has reported that susceptibility to task-irrelevant visual distraction is linked with visual working memory (WM) capacity in adults. Here, we examined how neural susceptibility to task-irrelevant auditory distractors related to visual WM capacity in children with and without ADHD. Across two experiments, electroencephalography (EEG) signals were recorded from 146 Chinese children aged 7-15 (63 with ADHD, 23% girls; collected in 2022-2024), during which they performed visual tasks of varying difficulty with auditory distractors. The mismatch negativity (MMN) amplitude was measured as neural susceptibility to auditory distractors, and a K-score was calculated to assess visual WM capacity. In typically developing (TD) children, those with higher visual WM capacity showed less susceptibility to auditory distractors under high audiovisual competition (r = 0.494), whereas this relation reversed under low competition (r = -0.319). Conversely, in children with ADHD, lower visual WM capacity predicted higher susceptibility under both high (r = 0.442) and low competition (r = 0.326). These findings indicate that susceptibility to task-irrelevant auditory distraction is related to visual WM capacity in children, but the patterns differ between typical and atypical neurodevelopment and are modulated by audiovisual competition.