Differences in Ex-Gaussian Parameters from Response Time Distributions Between Individuals with and Without Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Meta-analysis

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent neurodevelopmental disorders in childhood and adolescence. Differences in reaction times (RT) in cognitive tasks have been consistently observed between ADHD and typical participants. Instead of estimating means and standard deviations, fitting non-symmetrical distributions like the ex-Gaussian, characterized by three parameters (mu, sigma, and tau), account for the whole RT distributions. A meta-analysis is performed with all the available literature using ex-Gaussian distributions for comparisons between individuals with ADHD and controls. Results show that tau and sigma are generally greater for ADHD samples, while mu tends to be larger for typical groups but only for younger ages. Differences in tau are also moderated by ADHD subtypes. tau and sigma show, respectively, quadratic and linear relationships with inter-stimulus intervals from Continuous Performance Test and Go/No Go tasks. Furthermore, tasks and cognitive domains influence the three parameters. Interpretations of ex-Gaussian parameters and clinical implications of these findings are also discussed. Fitting ex-Gaussian distributions to RT data is a useful way to explore differences between individuals with ADHD and healthy controls.