| Affiliation: | (1) California State University, Fresno, USA;(2) Department of Forensic Psychology, Alliant University, Fresno, California, USA;(3) Chowchilla Women’s Prison, Chowchilla, California, USA;(4) Parlier, California, USA;(5) Alliant University, USA;(6) University of Colorado School of Health Sciences, USA;(7) Department of Psychology, MS PH-11, California State University, 93740-8019 Fresno, CA, USA |
| Abstract: | Attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) is associated with elevated levels of substance abuse, but the cognitive linkages involved have been little explored. The present study builds upon earlier work showing that more gestalt, as opposed to feature-intensive, styles of processing are conductive to substance abuse, especially in those with ADHD symptoms. The work reported here indicates that a protective factor against substance abuse may lie in relatively efficient heuristic processing, especially synthetic or inferential heuristic processing, but further demonstrates that those with ADHD symptoms tend to have poorer abilities in this regard, even at the subclinical, nondiagnosed level. Results are discussed in terms of the gestalt/featureintensive processing theory of cognition. |
