Manipulating item proportion and deception reveals crucial dissociation between behavioral, autonomic, and neural indices of concealed information

Abstract

Developed as an alternative to traditional deception detection methods, the concealed information test (CIT) assesses recognition of critical (e.g., crime-relevant) "probes." Most often, recognition has been measured as enhanced skin conductance responses (SCRs) to probes compared to irrelevant foils (CIT effect). More recently, also differentially enlarged reaction times (RTs) and increased neural activity in the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, the right middle frontal gyrus, and the right temporo-parietal junction have been observed. The aims of the current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study were to (1) investigate the boundary conditions of the CIT effects in all three measures and thereby (2) gain more insight into the relative contribution of two mechanisms underlying enhanced responding to concealed information (i.e., orienting versus response inhibition). Therefore, we manipulated the proportion of probe versus irrelevant items, and whether suspects were instructed to actively deny recognition of probe knowledge (i.e., deceive) during the test. Results revealed that whereas overt deception was not necessary for the SCR CIT effect, it was crucial for the RT and the fMRI-based CIT effects. The proportion manipulation enhanced the CIT effect in all three measures. The results indicate that different mental processes might underlie the response pattern in the CIT. While skin conductance responding to concealed information may best be explained by orienting theory, it seems that response inhibition drives RT and blood oxygen level dependent responding to concealed information.

Unraveling the roles of orienting and inhibition in the Concealed Information Test

“…While the Bayesian analysis provided substantial evidence for the null hypothesis (i.e., no detection score differences between the conceal and reveal conditions) with the SCR measure, it provided substantial evidence for the alternative hypothesis (i.e., detection score differences between the conceal and reveal conditions) with the other two measures. The finding that the SCR is unaffected by arousal inhibition corresponds with earlier findings that this measure is unaffected by response inhibition (e.g., Ambach et al, 2008;Meijer, klein Selle, Elber, & Ben-Shakhar, 2014;Suchotzki et al, 2015). Further, the present findings partially correspond to those of a recent study that aimed to manipulate the arousal inhibition factor (i.e., Matsuda et al, 2013).…”

“…Several CIT studies aimed to differentiate the role of orienting from inhibition. Although most of these studies targeted the response inhibition factor (e.g., Ambach, Stark, Peper, & Vaitl, 2008;Elaad & Ben-Shakhar, 1989;Furedy & Ben-Shakhar, 1991;Horneman & O'Gorman, 1985;Kugelmass, Lieblich, & Bergman, 1967;Suchotzki, Verschuere, Peth, Crombez, & Gamer, 2015), some studies aimed to manipulate the arousal inhibition factor (e.g., Elaad, 2013;Gustafson & Orne, 1965;Matsuda, Nittono, & Ogawa, 2013;Zvi, Nachson, & Elaad, 2012). Importantly, these studies faced one or both of the following drawbacks: (1) It is unclear whether all attempts at arousal inhibition were eliminated in the noninhibition conditions.…”

The effect of mental countermeasures on neuroimaging‐based concealed information tests

“…For instance, an fMRI study that attempted to eliminate response competition processes in the CIT interpreted VLPFC activation as reflecting memory‐related processes (Gamer, Klimecki, Bauermann, Stoeter, & Vossel, ). Results from more recent work, however, have been interpreted as indicating that response competition processes are critical for VLPFC activation (Suchotzki, Verschuere, Peth, Crombez, & Gamer, ). A detailed discussion of why such discrepancies might exist goes beyond the scope of this article, but the main point is that they are probably due to the difficulty in isolating individual processes in CIT paradigms.…”

Orienting versus inhibition in the Concealed Information Test: Different cognitive processes drive different physiological measures

“…Although the CIT is not a test of deception, it was reasoned that the denial of relevant-item knowledge causes a conflict between the truthful and the required deceptive response, which is resolved by inhibiting the former response (Seymour & Schumacher, 2009;Verschuere & De Houwer, 2011). Response inhibition has been indicated to play a role in the CIT based on Reaction Time (Suchotzki, Verschuere, Peth, Crombez, & Gamer, 2014) and fMRI measures (e.g., Gamer, 2014;Gamer, Bauermann, Stoeter, & Vossel, 2007;Langleben et al, 2002;Phan et al, 2005), but it remains unclear whether it plays a role in the autonomic-based CIT (see Ambach, Stark, Peper, & Vaitl, 2008a;Ambach et al, 2011). Indeed, meta-analytic studies have demonstrated that similar CIT effects were observed with the SCR measure when subjects responded deceptively to the relevant items and when they remained silent and did not give any overt responses (Ben-Shakhar & Elaad, 2003;Meijer, klein Selle, Elber, & Ben-Shakhar, 2014).…”