THE COST OF STAYING ON TASK: A VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT PARADIGM FOR STUDYING CURIOSITY-DRIVEN LEARNING DETOURS IN ADHD

Curiosity plays a central role in learning and motivation, yet it may compete with goal-directed behaviour in structured environments. This study aims to develop and test a virtual-environment paradigm to explore how curiosity relates to ADHD traits in adults. Adults with an ADHD diagnosis complete a time-limited object-collection task in a virtual environment, encountering two categories of objects: goal-relevant objects required for a later memory test, and objects containing interesting but non goal-relevant information. Objects display floating previews, creating naturalistic information cues. Participants are instructed to collect as many goal-relevant objects as possible to maximise task performance, while non-goal-relevant objects are optional and not rewarded. This design generates an index of curiosity-driven ‘learning detours’, defined as choosing to collect non-goal-relevant objects at the potential expense of task performance. ADHD trait levels are assessed using the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-18). Measures include the proportion of goal-relevant relative to non goal-relevant objects collected, performance on the memory test, and self-reports of curiosity and task engagement. In addition, EEG is recorded during task performance to measure frontal midline theta as an index of goal-maintenance effort when non goal-relevant information is available. Analyses test whether ADHD trait levels predict individual differences in curiosity-driven behaviour and associated goal-maintenance cognitive effort. The study is designed to generate proof-of-concept data and to validate a new experimental method for lab-based study of curiosity, goal maintenance, and self-directed learning in ADHD.