title: Initial Orientation of Attention towards Emotional Faces in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Early recognition of negative emotions is considered to be of vital importance. It seems that children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have some difficulties recognizing facial emotional expressions, especially negative ones. This study investigated the preference of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder for negative (angry, sad) facial expressions compared to normal children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were 35 drug naive boys with ADHD, aged between 6-11 years,and 31 matched healthy children. Visual orientation data were recorded while participants viewed face pairs (negative-neutral pairs) shown for 3000ms. The number of first fixations made to each expression was considered as an index of initial orientation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Group comparisons revealed no difference between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder group and their matched healthy counterparts in initial orientation of attention. A tendency towards negative emotions was found within the normal group, while no difference was observed between initial allocation of attention toward negative and neutral expressions in children with ADHD.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder do not have significant preference for negative facial expressions. In contrast, normal children have a significant preference for negative facial emotions rather than neutral faces.
authors.affiliation: Department of psychiatry, Roozbeh psychiatry hospital, Tehran university of medical sciences,Tehran,Iran.
authors.forename: Mehrnoosh
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ahmadi
authors.forename: Mitra
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Judi
authors.forename: Anahita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khorrami
authors.forename: Javad
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mahmoudi-Gharaei
authors.forename: Mehdi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tehrani-Doost