Tell me sweet little lies: An event-related potentials study on the processing of social lies

Abstract

In reading tasks, words that convey a false statement elicit an enhanced N400 brainwave response, relative to words that convey a true statement. N400 amplitude reductions are generally linked to the online expectancy of upcoming words in discourse. White lies, contrary to false statements, may not be unexpected in social scenarios. We used the event-related potential (ERP) technique to determine whether there is an impact of social context on sentence processing. We measured ERP responses to target words that either conveyed a social "white" lie or a socially impolite blunt truth, relative to semantic violations. Word expectancy was controlled for by equating the cloze probabilities of white lying and blunt true targets, as measured in previous paperand-pencil tests. We obtained a classic semantic violation effect (a larger N400 for semantic incongruities relative to sense making statements). White lies, in contrast to false statements, did not enhance the amplitude of the N400 component. Interestingly, blunt true statements yielded both a late frontal positivity and an N400 response in those scenarios particularly biased to white lying. Thus, white lies do not interfere with online semantic processing, and they do not engage further reanalysis processes, which are typically indexed by subsequent late positivity ERP effects. Instead, an N400 and a late frontal positivity obtained in response to blunt true statements indicate that they were treated as unexpected events. In conclusion, unwritten rules of social communicative behavior influence the electrical brain response to locally coherent but socially inappropriate statements.

Limitations of Standard Accessible Captioning of Sounds and Music for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People: An EEG Study

“…The difference appreciated between the normal hearing and hearing loss groups with Audio and Mute conditions, respectively, regarding the NS300 maps, was the greater activation of these cerebral areas in the hearing loss group. Numerous studies justified that the increase in the amplitude of the evoked potentials would be associated with greater cognitive effort of the task, more complex processing, and processing intensity (Moreno et al, 2016;Romero-Rivas et al, 2016;Sanchez-Lopez et al, 2016).…”

Pragmatics Electrified

“…However, pragmatic mechanisms are involved also in several other language phenomena, on which electrophysiological investigation is still scarce. A non-exhaustive list includes the processing of scalars [170,172,173], negation [174,175] lies [176], and those phenomena at the interface with discourse factors, such as the questions under discussion (QUD) [177], or the interaction between prosody and information structure [178].…”

Attachment Styles and Communication of Displeasing Truths

“…Therefore, people often refrain from telling displeasing truths to others (Moreno et al, 2016;Levine and Cohen, 2018); although sincerity is a feature of the utmost importance for interpersonal judgment (Anderson, 1968;Goodwin et al, 2014), it can also be viewed as an act of cruelty (Tagliapietra, 2003), while with holding unpleasant information is seen as a way to protect the other from disrupting emotions.…”