While people with ADHD commonly have significant working memory challenges (Adler et al., 2020), it’s not always the source of missing information. Sometimes what we perceive as “forgetting” actually comes down to internal distraction, rather than a storage failure. It has long been known that people with ADHD experience significantly higher rates of spontaneous mind wandering – the unintended shifting of attention away from something, toward internal thoughts. This ‘internal distractibility’ prevents a person from maintaining the required attention to a ‘hearing’ some elements of conversation, when the distraction is present.
When distracted, information fails to be acquired and processed because the mind was elsewhere at the moment of delivery. This mental drift can happen to all or most people, but it is particularly prevalent in ADHD and is associated with more severe functional challenges in daily life. Also, people with ADHD are less likely to notice their own thoughts have drifted until the information has already been missed (Lanier et al., 2021; Luo et al., 2023).
The confusion between ADHD working memory and missing information through distraction usually comes down to when the ‘forgetting’ happens. We often blame a faulty memory for gaps in our knowledge and sometimes that’s accurate, but in many cases the information never actually made it into our heads to begin with. This is because our thoughts are on something else, even while we seem engaged in what’s happening right in front of us. The drift is common during meetings or conversations when the topic shifts away from something directly relevant to our current thoughts. We might be totally locked into a discussion about a specific task we’re handling, but if the group starts talking about something else for a while, our minds will be likely to wander. If there is already something pressing on our minds, like a problem we’re trying to solve or a specific way we want to communicate something, then this internal pull can even happen during very short conversations.
The autopilot state is an example of this. Let’s take something a simple as the office tea run; You might check with the team to see who wants a tea or coffee, physically gather the mugs, and walk to the kitchen while your mind is completely preoccupied with a work task. It’s only when you stand in front of the kettle that you realise you have to go back and ask what people wanted again. You tell people you “forgot,” but you didn’t actually forget. You were acting on autopilot while your mind was elsewhere, meaning you never truly processed their answers when they gave them. The distraction lasted right up until you had to switch tasks at the kettle.
These gaps can be incredibly brief, sometimes lasting only a second. You might ask someone a “yes or no” question and then immediately drift off. You walk away, only to turn back around a moment later because you realised you missed the answer entirely, even though you were standing right there when they said it. Because you were distracted the instant after asking, the information never landed. In cases like this, we mistakenly think our memory failed us, when really we just weren’t ‘checked in’ for the split second that mattered.
References:
Adler, L. A., Leon, T. L., Faraone, S. V., Reimherr, F. W., & Saylor, K. E. (2020). Working memory impairment in adults with ADHD: A review of the literature and meta-analysis. Journal of Attention Disorders, 24(12), 1645–1655.
Lanier, J., Noyes, E., & Biederman, J. (2021). Mind wandering (internal distractibility) in ADHD: A literature review. Journal of Attention Disorders, 25(6), 885–890.
Luo, Y., Weibman, D., Halperin, J. M., & Li, X. (2023). A review of heterogeneity in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 17, 1222444.