Cognitive processes during deception about attitudes revisited: a replication study

Abstract

Event-related potential (ERP) studies about deception often apply recognition tasks. It remains questionable whether reported ERP patterns and cognitive processes can be generalized to other contexts. As the study by Johnson et al. (2008) fills this gap by investigating deception regarding attitudes, we tried to replicate it. Participants (N = 99) were instructed to lie or tell the truth about their attitudes. We obtained the same results as Johnson et al. (2008): lies were accompanied by enhanced medial frontal negativities (MFN) and suppressed late positive components (LPCs) indicating that lying relied on stronger cognitive control processes and response conflicts than being honest. The amplitudes of pre-response positivities (PRP) were reduced for lies implying that lies about attitudes were accompanied by strategic monitoring. MFN amplitudes increased and LPC amplitudes decreased for lies about positively valued items revealing that lying about positively valued items is cognitively more challenging than lying about negatively valued items. As a new finding, MFN, LPC and PRP components were neither moderated by Machiavellianism nor by changes in the attitude ratings. The results indicate that LPC, MFN and PRP components are reliable indicators of the cognitive processes used during deception and that it is worthwhile to investigate them in further deception contexts.

A novel and effective item‐source complex trial protocol: Discrimination of guilty from both knowledgeable and unknowledgeable innocent subjects

“…After the ring (item memory) is presented, the source memories of the guilty group and the knowledgeable innocent group are activated by stealing source words and other source words, respectively, while the source memories of the unknowledgeable innocent group are activated by neither stealing source words nor other source words. (2) Some studies showed that LPC could be regarded as P300 (Allen & Iacono, 1997; Farwell & Donchin, 1991; Johnson & Rosenfeld, 1992; Meijer et al, 2007; Scheuble & Beauducel, 2020b). A prerequisite for evoking the LPC/P300 is the presentation of small probability and/or meaningful stimuli (Johnson, 1986).…”

“…In this study, the LPC was used to distinguish the guilty from both the knowledgeable innocent and the unknowledgeable innocent. Since there were no relevant studies and the LPC could be regarded as P300 (Allen & Iacono, 1997; Farwell & Donchin, 1991; Johnson & Rosenfeld, 1992; Meijer et al, 2007; Scheuble & Beauducel, 2020b), the SD value was also set to 5.46 μV when the BF was calculated during the statistical analysis on BSDF LPC , which could be convenient for comparing the detection efficiency of P300 with that of LPC. In addition, calculating BF requires the mean difference and standard error in each experimental condition in this study (Dienes, 2019).…”

Individual differences in ERPs during deception: Observing vs. demonstrating behavior leading to a small social conflict

“…One tick at the xaxis stands for 100 ms and one tick at the y-axis for 1 µV. Adapted from Scheuble and Beauducel (2020a).…”

The Truth about Lies: Signs, Beliefs and Attitudes

“…Pre-response positivities (PRP) showed smaller amplitudes for lies that suggested intentional monitoring was used in conjunction with the lies regarding attitudes. Lying about positively valued items is more cognitively demanding than lying about negatively valued items, as evidenced by the fact that MFN amplitudes increased and LPC amplitudes fell when lies were made about them 7 .…”