Repeated response execution and inhibition alter subjective preferences but do not affect automatic approach and avoidance tendencies toward an object.

Background: Repeated action or inaction toward objects changes preferences for those objects. However, it remains unclear whether such training activates approach-avoidance motivation toward the objects, which leads to actual behavior. We conducted a pre-registered online experiment to examine whether approach and avoidance tendencies were affected by the experience of having executed or withheld a button-press response to a stimulus. Methods: Participants (N = 236) performed a Go/NoGo task in which they were asked to repeatedly execute a response to a picture of a mug (i.e., Go-primed stimulus) and suppress a response to another picture of a mug (i.e., NoGo-primed stimulus). They then received one of two manikin tasks, which were implicit association tests designed to assess approach-avoidance tendencies. One manikin task measured the reaction times of moving a manikin toward or away from the Go-primed stimulus and the other picture of a mug (i.e., unprimed stimulus). The other manikin task measured the reaction times of moving a manikin toward or away from the NoGo-primed stimulus and the unprimed stimulus. The participants then rated their preference for the Go-primed, NoGo-primed, and unprimed items. Results: The Go-primed item was evaluated as more highly preferable than the unprimed item in the Go condition, while the NoGo-primed item was evaluated as less preferable than the unprimed item in the NoGo condition. In contrast, the mean approach/avoidance reaction times in the manikin task showed no difference between the Go-primed and unprimed stimuli or between the NoGo-primed and unprimed stimuli. Conclusion: When participants repeatedly responded or inhibited their responses to an object, their explicit preference for the object increased or decreased, respectively. However, the effect did not occur in approach-avoidance behaviors toward the object.

Combined pituitary hormone deficiency harboring CHD7 gene missense mutation without CHARGE syndrome: a case report.

BACKGROUND: Heterozygous loss-of-function mutations in the chromodomain helicase DNA-binding protein 7 (CHD7) gene cause CHARGE syndrome characterized by various congenital anomalies. A majority of patients with CHARGE syndrome present with congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (HH), and combined pituitary hormone deficiency (CPHD) can also be present. Whereas CHD7 mutations have been identified in some patients with isolated HH without a diagnosis of CHARGE syndrome, it remains unclear whether CHD7 mutations can be identified in patients with CPHD who do not fulfill the criteria for CHARGE syndrome. CASE PRESENTATION: A 33-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital. She had primary amenorrhea and was at Tanner stage 2 for both pubic hair and breast development. She was diagnosed with CPHD (HH, growth hormone deficiency, and central hypothyroidism), and a heterozygous rare missense mutation (c.6745G > A, p.Asp2249Asn) in the CHD7 gene was identified. Our conservation analysis and numerous in silico analyses suggested that this mutation had pathogenic potential. She had mild intellectual disability, a minor feature of CHARGE syndrome, but did not fulfill the criteria for CHARGE syndrome. CONCLUSIONS: We report a rare case of CPHD harboring CHD7 mutation without CHARGE syndrome. This case provides valuable insights into phenotypes caused by CHD7 mutations. CHD7 mutations can have a continuous phenotypic spectrum depending on the severity of hypopituitarism and CHARGE features. Therefore, we would like to propose a novel concept of CHD7-associated syndrome.

Exogenous insulin antibody syndrome in a patient with diabetes secondary to total pancreatectomy.

Exogenous insulin can induce insulin antibodies that have a low affinity/high binding capacity. Similar to what is observed in insulin autoimmune syndrome, these insulin antibodies can cause fasting hypoglycemia and postprandial hyperglycemia, a phenomenon known as "exogenous insulin antibody syndrome" (EIAS). Cases of EIAS in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes have been sporadically reported, mainly in Asia. However, there has been no report on EIAS in patients with diabetes secondary to total pancreatectomy treated with insulin analogs. A 74-year-old man with diabetes after total pancreatectomy had been treated with continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion using an insulin analog, lispro, and developed recurrent early morning hypoglycemia even after discontinuation of nocturnal basal insulin. His fasting serum lispro level was high even approximately 9 h after the last lispro dose. He had a high titer (72.7%) of insulin antibodies, and a Scatchard analysis revealed low affinity/high binding capacity. These findings suggested that the patient's recurrent early morning hypoglycemia was associated with insulin antibodies against lispro, and we, therefore, switched from lispro to another insulin analog, glulisine. His hypoglycemia improved, accompanied by a dramatic decrease in his insulin antibodies and serum glulisine levels. Early morning hypoglycemia in patients with diabetes secondary to total pancreatectomy may often be explained by high glycemic variability, malnutrition, and/or glucagon deficiency. However, in cases of recurrent early morning hypoglycemia, EIAS should be considered as a potential differential diagnosis.

Selective memory detection: Context-dependent stimulus significance in the concealed information test.

Previous studies have posited that the significance of a crime-relevant item in a question produces differential physiological responses in the Concealed Information Test (CIT). However, this term is equivocal and needs to be clarified in order to strengthen the theoretical underpinnings of the CIT. The present study examined the hypothesis that differential responding depends on the examinee's understanding of which item in a question is relevant to a given context. Participants performed a mock theft task, in which they were instructed to steal one item from each of two different locations. An identical CIT question asking about each stolen item was presented under different location contexts while skin conductance response, heart rate, and respiratory activity were recorded. Results indicated that only the relevant item specified by the context of the instruction elicited reliable differential physiological responses. This finding implies that differential responding in the CIT is flexible and context-dependent, and that specifying the subject of a given question is important for detecting crime-relevant memories in practical criminal investigations.

The Intention to Conceal Does Not Always Affect Time Perception.

The display duration of stimuli is overestimated due to the increase in phasic arousal induced by the stimuli or high levels of background arousal. A previous study demonstrated that display duration of items (2 s) was overestimated when a participant attempted to conceal one of the items so as not to be detected in the concealed information test (CIT). As the time perception remained the same between the item to be concealed and the other items, the overestimation was thought to be due to the high level of background arousal under the conceal condition. Duration of 2 s may be too long to examine the phasic arousal effect induced by the concealed item. The present study conducted three online experiments with shorter durations, that is, each of three items was presented with duration of 1, 0.5, and 2 s in Experiments 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The participants were instructed to conceal one of the three items under the conceal condition and did not conceal any item in the innocent condition. The difference in time perception between the conceal and innocent conditions or between items under the conceal condition was observed in none of the three experiments. The result indicates that temporal overestimation does not occur when a participant is only concealing an object. Rather, temporal overestimation would occur only when the level of background arousal is amplified by the concealment.

Different psychophysiological responses induced by a stimulus change during the orienting task and the Concealed Information Test.

The orienting response (OR) account of the Concealed Information Test (CIT) posits that physiological responses to CIT items are components of the OR. Physiological variations within a stimulus sequence were investigated in an OR task (Study 1) and the CIT (Study 2). In Study 1, an unexpected increase in tone intensity was introduced after repeated standard tone presentations. The deviant tone elicited a large skin conductance response (SCR), heightened vascular tone, and self-reported surprise and also increased skin conductance level, self-reported arousal, and sustained vascular tone thereafter. In Study 2, the deviant relevant item presentation elicited a larger SCR and greater surprise compared with the frequent irrelevant item presentation, whereas vascular tone and self-reported arousal dropped after presentation of the relevant item. These results indicate that although phasic responses to a deviant stimulus were similar in both tasks, tonic variations following the stimulus change differed. Possible implications are discussed.

Time Passes Slowly When You Are Concealing Something.

The item to be concealed elicits greater physiological arousal than other items. Since high physiological arousal causes an overestimation of time, the display duration of an item is expected to be perceived as longer when people intend to conceal it. After stealing and concealing one item, 36 university students were asked to judge the display duration of an item as shorter than, equal to, or longer than a memorised duration of 2 s. Pictures of three items including the stolen item were presented in the guilty condition, whereas pictures of three items that had not been stolen were presented in the innocent condition. The display of all items in the guilty condition was perceived as longer than in the innocent condition without difference between the concealed and other items. The intention to conceal increases tonic arousal reflected in a higher skin conductance level and leads to a non-specific temporal overestimation.

Broadening the Use of the Concealed Information Test in the Field.

Japan is the only country where the polygraph with the concealed information test (CIT) is widely applied to criminal investigations. The CIT can reveal whether an examinee has knowledge of specific details of a crime. Furthermore, the CIT can extract crime-relevant information that investigative organizations have not yet uncovered. This article introduces how Japanese polygraphers take advantage of the CIT in criminal investigations. We also describe how polygraphs with the CIT are currently used in court. Then we propose statistical discrimination methods that can be easily applied to CIT interpretation in the field. Appropriate application of the statistical values is discussed. We hope that this article will facilitate more active use of the CIT outside Japan.

A concealment-specific frontal negative slow wave is generated from the right prefrontal cortex in the Concealed Information Test.

Recent studies have shown that a memorized item in the Concealed Information Test elicits a frontal negative slow wave (500-1000 ms) of the event-related potential, the cortical source of which involves the right prefrontal cortex. To examine whether this negative slow wave reflects a process that is specific to concealment rather than a more general cognitive control process, we compared the event-related potentials of 24 participants in four conditions involving the presence or absence of memory and the intention to conceal. Results showed that right prefrontal activation during the frontal negative slow wave (estimated by Standardized Low Resolution Brain Electromagnetic Tomography) was only observed when participants attempted to conceal the memorized item, but not when they were motivated to reveal it or had no intention to conceal. These findings suggest that the right prefrontal cortex is involved in a concealment-specific process in the Concealed Information Test.

Hierarchical Bayesian models for the autonomic-based concealed information test.

The concealed information test (CIT) is a psychophysiological memory detection technique for examining whether an examinee recognizes crime-relevant information. In current statistical analysis practice, the autonomic responses are usually transformed into Z scores within individuals to remove inter- and intra-individual variability. However, this conventional procedure leads to overestimation of the effect size, specifically the standardized mean difference of the autonomic responses between the crime-relevant information and the crime-irrelevant information. In this study, we attempted to resolve this problem by modeling inter- and intra-individual variability directly using hierarchical Bayesian modeling. Five models were constructed and applied to CIT data obtained from 167 participants. The validity of the CIT was confirmed using Bayesian estimates of the effect sizes, which are more accurate and interpretable than conventional effect sizes. Moreover, hierarchical Bayesian modeling provided information that is not available from the conventional statistical analysis procedure.

The intention to conceal activates the right prefrontal cortex: an event-related potential study.

Recent studies on deception have shown that a late positive potential (LPP), a component of event-related brain potentials, is elicited when a participant wishes to conceal recognition of the eliciting stimulus. The LPP occurs about 500 ms after stimulus onset and has an occipital scalp distribution with concurrent negativity at frontal sites. The present study investigated the cortical sources of the LPP associated with the intention to conceal. Standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography analysis was applied on previously published concealment-related LPP data (Matsuda, Nittono, and Ogawa, 2013, N=30). The cortical sources of the LPP were estimated in the right middle frontal gyrus and the right inferior frontal gyrus, which fits well with the findings of fMRI studies. Previous research suggests that activities in the middle frontal gyrus and the right inferior frontal gyrus are associated with cognitive control and that greater relative right than left frontal activities are associated with withdrawal motivation. On the basis of these findings, it is concluded that the LPP may reflect cognitive control with withdrawal motivation that is recruited by the participants' goal of concealing their recognition and avoiding disclosure. A positive potential at occipital sites can be a sign of the activation in the prefrontal cortex.

Motivational significance and cognitive effort elicit different late positive potentials.

OBJECTIVE: The interaction between affective and cognitive processes has been examined using the late positive potential (LPP) component of the event-related brain potential. The LPP is elicited not only by affective stimuli but also by nonaffective stimuli that require effortful cognitive processing. However, it is unclear whether these LPPs are equivalent. The present study decomposed the LPP into subcomponents that responded differently to affective content and cognitive demands. METHODS: The participants (N=21) performed four types of revised oddball tasks, in which one affective and five nonaffective pictures were presented. For one of the nonaffective pictures, different cognitive demands were loaded: viewing the display, updating a count, updating two different items, or concealing knowledge of the picture. RESULTS: A temporal-spatial principal component analysis revealed two major subcomponents of the LPP. The central-parietal subcomponent was elicited by affective stimuli, whereas the occipital subcomponent was elicited by nonaffective stimuli with cognitive demands in the two-item updating and concealment conditions. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that the central-parietal dominant LPP may reflect motivated attentional processing, whereas the occipital dominant LPP may reflect effortful controlled processing. SIGNIFICANCE: Dealing with these two LPP subcomponents separately may be useful for examining the interaction between affective and cognitive processing of stimuli.

The Comparison Question Test versus the Concealed Information Test? That was the question in Japan: a comment on Palmatier and Rovner (2015).

Palmatier and Rovner (2015) discussed the possible interplay of two major methods of polygraph examination, the Comparison Question Test (CQT) and the Concealed Information Test (CIT). In this comment, we argue that such an attempt overlooks fundamental differences between the two methods. Specifically, both methods differ in their criterion variables; detecting deception versus detecting memory traces. This difference can lead to a different evaluation concerning their outcomes within a forensic context. However, Palmatier and Rovner's (2015) attempt may blur the distinction between the two methods. Furthermore, at least for the present, it is difficult to give a unified explanation of physiological responses in the CQT and CIT based on the preliminary process theory of the orienting response. In sum, Palmatier and Rovner's (2015) paper may add further confusion to the research and practice of polygraph testing. Additionally, their paper has no relevance to the current practice of Japanese polygraph examination, because Japanese law enforcement uses only the CIT for memory detection in real-life criminal investigations.

Using pretest data to screen low-reactivity individuals in the autonomic-based concealed information test.

The concealed information test (CIT) can be used to assess whether an individual possesses crime-related information. However, its discrimination performance has room for improvement. We examined whether screening out participants who do not respond distinctively on a pretest improves the diagnosticity of a mock-crime CIT. Before conducting the CIT, we gave a pretest to 152 participants, 80 of whom were assigned as guilty. Pretest screening significantly improved the diagnostic value of the mock-crime CIT; however, it also led to a substantial number of undiagnosed participants (33.6%). Pretest screening holds promise, but its application would benefit from dedicated measures for screening out participants.

Systematic changes in tonic physiological activities during the Concealed Information Test.

Many studies on the Concealed Information Test have focused on phasic physiological changes that are temporally locked to stimulus presentation. However, little is known about changes in tonic, basal physiological levels throughout a stimulus series. This study focused on changes in tonic physiological activities during the CIT. Thirty-nine participants carried out a mock theft and subsequently received a CIT. Skin conductance, heart rate, and normalized pulse volume (NPV) were recorded. The pre-stimulus physiological level of these measures throughout the CIT series was compared across a question series with different serial positions of the relevant item. Results showed that changes in the pre-stimulus level differed depending on the serial position of the relevant item. Skin conductance declined throughout the series, but showed a transient increase after relevant item presentation. Heart rate was relatively constant throughout the series, but decreased after relevant item presentation. NPV continued to decrease until the relevant item, but increased thereafter, indicating a pattern similar to the classic Peak of Tension concept. In addition, the pre-stimulus NPV showed a significant relevant-irrelevant difference. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Identifying concealment-related responses in the concealed information test.

The concealed information test (CIT) assesses an examinee's recognition of a crime-relevant item using physiological measures. However, a guilty examinee not only recognizes the crime-relevant item but also conceals the recognition intentionally. In this study, we attempted to identify the effect of concealing the recognition on event-related potentials and autonomic responses. After committing a mock theft of two items, 30 participants received two CITs: one for an item that they had to conceal, and the other for an item that they had disclosed. N2, P3, heart rate, skin conductance, and cutaneous blood flow differed between crime-relevant and irrelevant items in both CITs. In contrast, late positive potential and respiration differed between crime-relevant and irrelevant items only when the examinee needed to conceal. The former measures appear to be related to orienting process, whereas the latter to controlled process related to concealment.

Detection of concealed information by P3 and frontal EEG asymmetry.

Psychophysiological detection of deception has seen increased attention in both research and applied settings. In this field, the most scientifically validated paradigm is the Concealed Information Test (CIT). The CIT does not directly deal with whether a participant is lying, but examines whether a participant recognizes a critical relevant detail, inferred by differences in physiological responses between critical and non-critical items. Although event-related potential (ERP) approaches to the CIT have shown high accuracy, a combination of measures might improve the test's performance. We thus assessed whether a new CIT index, frontal EEG asymmetry that is supposed to reflect differences in approach/withdrawal motivation, would prove useful. Nineteen participants were asked to steal one item in a mock crime, and were then administered two CITs while concealing the stolen item. One CIT included the stolen item (i.e., guilty condition), whereas the other CIT did not (i.e., innocent condition). In the guilty condition, the concealed stolen item elicited greater relative left frontal alpha activity (indicative of relative right frontal cortical activity) as compared to the other items, suggesting that the recognition of the concealed item might have induced withdrawal motivation. Although the discrimination between guilty and innocent conditions by the asymmetry score alone was not as good as that by the ERP P3 index, combining the asymmetry score and P3 improved the detection performance significantly. The results suggest that the frontal EEG asymmetry can be used as a new measure in the CIT that provides additional information beyond that captured by the traditional ERP index.

The current and future status of the concealed information test for field use.

The Concealed Information Test (CIT) is a psychophysiological technique for examining whether a person has knowledge of crime-relevant information. Many laboratory studies have shown that the CIT has good scientific validity. However, the CIT has seldom been used for actual criminal investigations. One successful exception is its use by the Japanese police. In Japan, the CIT has been widely used for criminal investigations, although its probative force in court is not strong. In this paper, we first review the current use of the field CIT in Japan. Then, we discuss two possible approaches to increase its probative force: sophisticated statistical judgment methods and combining new psychophysiological measures with classic autonomic measures. On the basis of these considerations, we propose several suggestions for future practice and research involving the field CIT.

Event-related potentials increase the discrimination performance of the autonomic-based concealed information test.

The concealed information test (CIT) assesses an examinee's crime-relevant memory on the basis of physiological differences between crime-relevant and irrelevant items. The CIT based on autonomic measures has been used for criminal investigations, while the CIT based on event-related potentials (ERPs) has been suggested as a useful alternative. To combine these two methods, we developed a quantification method of ERPs measured in the autonomic-based CIT where each item was repeated only 5 times. Results showed that the peak amplitude of the ERP difference wave between crime-relevant and irrelevant items could discriminate between guilty and innocent participants effectively even when only 5 trials were used for averaging. This ERP measure could detect some participants who were missed by the autonomic measures. Combining the ERP and autonomic measures significantly improved the discrimination performance of the autonomic-based CIT.

Improved method for calculating the respiratory line length in the Concealed Information Test.

The Concealed Information Test (CIT) assesses an examinee's knowledge about a crime based on response differences between crime-relevant and crime-irrelevant items. One effective measure in the CIT is the respiration line length, which is the average of the moving distances of the respiration curve in a specified time interval after the item onset. However, the moving distance differs between parts of a respiratory cycle. As a result, the calculated respiration line length is biased by how the parts of the respiratory cycles are included in the time interval. To resolve this problem, we propose a weighted average method, which calculates the respiration line length per cycle and weights it with the proportion that the cycle occupies in the time interval. Simulation results indicated that the weighted average method removes the bias of respiration line lengths compared to the original method. The results of experimental CIT data demonstrated that the weighted average method significantly increased the discrimination performance as compared with the original method. The weighted average method is a promising method for assessing respiration changes in response to question items more accurately, which improves the respiration-based discrimination performance of the CIT.