> Dr Barack and his colleagues collected data from 457 adults who completed an online foraging game where they had to collect as many berries as possible within eight minutes.
> Participants who scored higher on the ADHD scale spent shorter periods of time in each patch of bushes and were thus more likely to gain more points in the game than participants with lower scores on the ADHD scale.
So as I understand it, ADHD in that setup basically introduces chaos / randomness to avoid falling into local optima.
It immediately follows that having ADHD may be a major disadvantage in environments where there is only one global optimum (for example, a highly regulated and deterministic academic environment like school or undergraduate studies, or an established corporate environment).
> Participants who scored higher on the ADHD scale spent shorter periods of time in each patch of bushes and were thus more likely to gain more points in the game than participants with lower scores on the ADHD scale.
So as I understand it, ADHD in that setup basically introduces chaos / randomness to avoid falling into local optima.
It immediately follows that having ADHD may be a major disadvantage in environments where there is only one global optimum (for example, a highly regulated and deterministic academic environment like school or undergraduate studies, or an established corporate environment).