The effect of mental countermeasures on a novel brain-based feedback concealed information test.

The feedback concealed information test (fCIT) is a novel form of the CIT, providing participants with feedback regarding their memory concealment performance. The fCIT utilizes event-related potentials (recognition-P300 and feedback-related event-related potentials) and has been shown to provide high efficiency in detecting information concealment. However, it is unclear how well the fCIT performs in the presence of mental countermeasures. To address this question, participants were trained to use countermeasures during fCIT. Results showed that the recognition-P300 efficiency decreased when participants used countermeasures. However, the efficiencies of feedback-related negativity and feedback-P300 were unchanged, with feedback-P300 still showing a high detection efficiency (AUC = 0.86) during countermeasures. These findings demonstrate the potential of fCIT for subverting countermeasures.

Detecting concealed information using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) combined with skin conductance, heart rate, and behavioral measures.

In this study, brain imaging data from functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) associated with skin conductance response (SCR), heart rate (HR), and reaction time (RT) were combined to determine if the combination of these indicators could improve the efficiency of deception detection in concealed information test (CIT). During the CIT, participants were presented with a series of names and cities that served as target, probe, or irrelevant stimuli. In the guilty group, the probe stimuli were the participants' own names and hometown cities, and they were asked to deny this information. Our results revealed that probe items were associated with longer RT, larger SCR, slower HR, and higher oxyhemoglobin (HbO) concentration changes in the inferior prefrontal gyrus (IFG), middle frontal gyrus (MFG), and the superior frontal gyrus (SFG) compared with irrelevant items for participants in the guilty group but not in the innocent group. Furthermore, our results suggested that the combination of RT, SCR, HR, and fNIRS indicators could improve the deception detection efficiency to a very high area under the ROC curve (0.94) compared with any of the single indicators (0.74-0.89). The improved deception detection efficiency might be attributed to the reduction of random error and the diversiform underlying the psychophysiological mechanisms reflected by each indicator. These findings demonstrate a feasible way to improve the deception detection efficiency by using combined multiple indicators.

Neural mechanisms of deliberate dishonesty: Dissociating deliberation from other control processes during dishonest behaviors.

Numerous studies have sought proof of whether people are genuinely honest by testing whether cognitive control mechanisms are recruited during honest and dishonest behaviors. The underlying assumption is: Deliberate behaviors require cognitive control to inhibit intuitive responses. However, cognitive control during honest and dishonest behaviors can be required for other reasons than deliberation. Across 58 neuroimaging studies (1,211 subjects), we investigated different forms of honest and dishonest behaviors and demonstrated that many brain regions previously implicated in dishonesty may reflect more general cognitive mechanisms. We argue that the motivational/volitional dimension is central to deliberation and provide evidence that motivated dishonest behaviors recruit the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex. This work questions the view that cognitive control is a hallmark of dishonesty.

Neural correlates of spontaneous deception in a non-competitive interpersonal scenario: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study.

This study aims to examine neural correlates of spontaneous deception in a non-competitive interpersonal situation, and the difference in neural correlates between spontaneous deception and instructed deception using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). We used a modified poker game in which participants freely decided whether sending a piece of truthful/deceptive information to other participants. In the instructed session, participants sent truthful/deceptive information per the instructions. In this non-competitive interpersonal situation in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), deception produced higher neural activities than truth-telling. In addition, spontaneous deception exhibited higher neural activities than instructed deception in the frontopolar area, DLPFC, and frontal eye fields. Spontaneous truth-telling produced higher neural activities than instructed truth-telling in frontal eye fields and frontopolar area. This study provides evidence about neural correlates of spontaneous deception during non-competitive interpersonal scenarios and the difference between spontaneous deception and instructed deception.

Feedback does not influence the recognition-related P300 in a novel concealed information test while feedback-evoked P300 shows promising diagnostic accuracy.

The feedback concealed information test (fCIT) is a novel variant of a CIT, which provides participants with feedback regarding their memory concealment performance during the CIT. Previous studies have found that feedback-related ERPs associated with feedback processing in the fCIT can accurately identify concealed information. However, it is still unknown whether the feedback influences the process and ERP signs of recognition during memory concealment, such as the recognition P300. To address this issue, the present study directly compared the recognition-based P300 in CITs with and without feedback. Results showed that the probe elicited a larger recognition P300 than irrelevants in both CITs with and without feedback, and there were no significant differences in recognition P300 between those two CITs. Moreover, the detection rate for recognition-based P300 in both CITs also had no significant difference. The feedback-related ERPs, especially feedback P300, continued to discriminate guilty and innocent subjects with AUCs well above the chance.