Lying in the scanner: Covert countermeasures disrupt deception detection by functional magnetic resonance imaging

Have you been there before? Decoding recognition of spatial scenes from fMRI signals in precuneus

One potential application of forensic "brain reading" is to test whether a suspect has previously experienced a crime scene. Here, we investigated whether it is possible to decode real life autobiographic exposure to spatial locations using fMRI. In the first session, participants visited four out of eight possible rooms on a university campus. During a subsequent scanning session, subjects passively viewed pictures and videos from these eight possible rooms (four old, four novel) without giving any responses. A multivariate searchlight analysis was employed that trained a classifier to distinguish between "seen" versus "unseen" stimuli from a subset of six rooms. We found that bilateral precuneus encoded information that can be used to distinguish between previously seen and unseen rooms and that also generalized to the two stimuli left out from training. We conclude that activity in bilateral precuneus is associated with the memory of previously visited rooms, irrespective of the identity of the room, thus supporting a parietal contribution to episodic memory for spatial locations. Importantly, we could decode whether a room was visited in real life without the need of explicit judgments about the rooms. This suggests that recognition is an automatic response that can be decoded from fMRI data, thus potentially supporting forensic applications of concealed information tests for crime scene recognition.

Brain Regions Activity During a Deceitful Monetary Game: An fMRI Study

: Finding neural correlates underlying deception may have implementations in judicial, security, and financial settings. Telling a successful lie may activate different brain regions associated with risk evaluation, subsequent reward/punishment possibility, decision-making, and theory of mind (ToM). Many other protocols have been developed to study individuals who proceed with deception under instructed laboratory conditions. However, no protocol has practiced lying in a real-life environment. We performed a functional MRI using a 3Tesla machine on 31 healthy individuals to detect the participants who successfully lie in a previously-designed game to earn or lose the monetary reward. The results revealed that lying results in an augmented activity in the right dorsolateral and right dorsomedial prefrontal cortices, the right inferior parietal lobule, bilateral inferior frontal gyri, and right anterior cingulate cortex. The findings would contribute to forensic practices regarding the detection of a deliberate lie. They may also have implications for guilt detection, social cognition, and the societal notions of responsibility.

Effective connectivity in cortical networks during deception: A lie detection study using EEG

Previous studies have identified activated regions associated with deceptive tasks and most of them utilized time, frequency, or temporal features to identify deceptive responses. However, when deception behaviors occur, the functional connectivity pattern and the communication between different brain areas remain largely unclear. In this study, we explored the most important information flows between different brain cortices during deception. First, we employed the guilty knowledge test protocol and recorded on 64 electrodes electroencephalogram (EEG) signals from 30 subjects (15 guilty and 15 innocent). EEG source estimation was then performed to compute the cortical activities on the 24 regions of interest (ROIs). Next, effective connectivity was calculated by partial directed coherence (PDC) analysis applied to the cortical signals. Furthermore, based on the graph-theoretical analysis, the network parameters with significant differences were extracted as features to identify two groups of subjects. In addition, the ROIs frequently involved in the above network parameters were selected, and based on the difference in the group mean of PDC values of all the edges connected with the selected ROIs, we presented the strongest information flows (MIIF) in the guilty group relative to the innocent group. Experimental results first show that the optimal classification features are mainly in-degree and out-degree measures of the ROI and the high classification accuracy for four bands demonstrated that the proposed method is suitable for lie detection. In addition, the frontoparietal network was found to be most prominent among all the MIIFs in four bands. Finally, combining the neurophysiology signification of four frequency bands, respectively, we analyzed the roles of all the important information flows to uncover the underlying cognitive processes and mechanisms used in deception.

Detecting spontaneous deception in the brain

Deception detection can be of great value during the juristic investigation. Although the neural signatures of deception have been widely documented, most prior studies were biased by difficulty levels. That is, deceptive behavior typically required more effort, making deception detection possibly effort detection. Furthermore, no study has examined the generalizability across instructed and spontaneous responses and across participants. To explore these issues, we used a dual‐task paradigm, where the difficulty level was balanced between truth‐telling and lying, and the instructed and spontaneous truth‐telling and lying were collected independently. Using Multivoxel pattern analysis, we were able to decode truth‐telling versus lying with a balanced difficulty level. Results showed that the angular gyrus (AG), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and postcentral gyrus could differentiate lying from truth‐telling. Critically, linear classifiers trained to distinguish instructed truthful and deceptive responses could correctly differentiate spontaneous truthful and deceptive responses in AG and IFG with above‐chance accuracy. In addition, with a leave‐one‐participant‐out analysis, multivoxel neural patterns from AG could classify if the left‐out participant was lying or not in a trial. These results indicate the commonality of neural responses subserved instructed and spontaneous deceptive behavior as well as the feasibility of cross‐participant deception validation.

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.

Brain Fingerprinting and Lie Detection: A Study of Dynamic Functional Connectivity Patterns of Deception Using EEG Phase Synchrony Analysis

This study investigated the brain functional connectivity (FC) patterns related to lie detection (LD) tasks with the purpose of analyzing the underlying cognitive processes and mechanisms in deception. Using the guilty knowledge test protocol, 30 subjects were divided randomly into guilty and innocent groups, and their electroencephalogram (EEG) signals were recorded on 32 electrodes. Phase synchrony of EEG was analyzed between different brain regions. A few-trials-based relative phase synchrony (FTRPS) measure was proposed to avoid the false synchronization that occurs due to volume conduction. FTRPS values with a significantly statistical difference between two groups were employed to construct FC patterns of deception, and the FTRPS values from the FC networks were extracted as the features for the training and testing of the support vector machine. Finally, four more intuitive brain fingerprinting graphs (BFG) on delta, theta, alpha and beta bands were respectively proposed. The experimental results reveal that deceptive responses elicited greater oscillatory synchronization than truthful responses between different brain regions, which plays an important role in executing lying tasks. The functional connectivity in the BFG are mainly implicated in the visuo-spatial imagery, bottom-top attention and memory systems, work memory and episodic encoding, and top-down attention and inhibition processing. These may, in part, underlie the mechanism of communication between different brain cortices during lying. High classification accuracy demonstrates the validation of BFG to identify deception behavior, and suggests that the proposed FTRPS could be a sensitive measure for LD in the real application.

What Deception Tasks Used in the Lab Really Do: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Ecological Validity of fMRI Deception Tasks

Interpretation of the neural findings of deception without considering the ecological validity of the experimental tasks could lead to biased conclusions. In this study we classified the experimental tasks according to their inclusion of three essential components required for ecological validity: intention to lie, social interaction and motivation. First, we carried out a systematic review to categorize fMRI deception tasks and to weigh the degree of ecological validity of each one. Second, we performed a meta-analysis to identify if each type of task involves a different neural substrate and to distinguish the neurocognitive contribution of each component of ecological validity essential to deception. We detected six categories of deception tasks. Intention to lie was the component least frequently included, followed by social interaction. Monetary reward was the most frequent motivator. The results of the meta-analysis, including 59 contrasts, revealed that intention to lie is associated with activation in the left lateral occipital cortex (superior division) whereas the left angular gyrus and right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) are engaged during lying under instructions. Additionally, the right IFG appears to participate in the social aspect of lying including simulated and real interactions. We found no effect of monetary reward in our analysis. Finally, tasks with high ecological validity recruited fewer brain areas (right insular cortex and bilateral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)) compared to less ecological tasks, perhaps because they are more natural and realistic, and engage a wide network of brain mechanisms, as opposed to specific tasks that demand more centralized processes.

Seen this scene? Scene recognition in the reaction-time Concealed Information Test

Detecting a suspect's recognition of a crime scene (e.g., a burgled room or a location visited for criminal activity) can be of great value during criminal investigations. Although it is established that the Reaction-Time Concealed Information Test (RT-CIT) can determine whether a suspect recognizes crime-related objects, no research has tested whether this capability extends to the recognition of scenes. In Experiment 1, participants were given an autobiographic scene-based RT-CIT. In Experiment 2, participants watched a mock crime video before completing an RT-CIT that included both scenes and objects. In Experiment 3, participants completed an autobiographic scene-based RT-CIT, with half instructed to perform a physical countermeasure. Overall, the findings showed that an equivalent RT-CIT effect can be found with both scene and object stimuli and that RT-CITs may not be susceptible to physical countermeasure strategies, thereby increasing its real-world applicability.

Eye see through you! Eye tracking unmasks concealed face recognition despite countermeasures

Background

Criminal associates such as terrorist members are likely to deny knowing members of their network when questioned by police. Eye tracking research suggests that lies about familiar faces can be detected by distinct markers of recognition (e.g. fewer fixations and longer fixation durations) across multiple eye fixation parameters. However, the effect of explicit eye movement strategies to concealed recognition on such markers has not been examined. Our aim was to assess the impact of fixed-sequence eye movement strategies (across the forehead, ears, eyes, nose, mouth and chin) on markers of familiar face recognition. Participants were assigned to one of two groups: a standard guilty group who were simply instructed to conceal knowledge but with no specific instructions on how to do so; and a countermeasures group who were instructed to look at every familiar and unfamiliar face in the same way by executing a consistent sequence of fixations.

Results

In the standard guilty group, lies about recognition of familiar faces showed longer average fixation durations, a lower proportion of fixations to the inner face regions, and proportionately more viewing of the eyes than honest responses to genuinely unknown faces. In the countermeasures condition, familiar face recognition was detected by longer fixations durations, fewer fixations to the inner regions of the face, and fewer interest areas of the face viewed. Longer fixation durations were a consistent marker of recognition across both conditions for most participants; differences were detectable from the first fixation.

Conclusion

The results suggest that individuals can exert a degree of executive control over fixation patterns but that: the eyes are particularly attention-grabbing for familiar faces; the more viewers look around the face, the more they give themselves away; and attempts to deploy the same fixation patterns to familiar and unfamiliar faces were unsuccessful. The results suggest that the best strategy for concealing recognition might be to keep the eyes fixated in the centre of the screen but, even then, recognition is apparent in longer fixation durations. We discuss potential optimal conditions for detecting concealed knowledge of faces.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s41235-019-0169-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Forensic psychiatry and neurolaw: Description, developments, and debates

Neuroscience produces a wealth of data on the relationship between brain and behavior, including criminal behavior. The research field studying the possible and actual impact of neuroscience on the law and legal practices, is called neurolaw. It is a new and rapidly developing domain of interdisciplinary research. Since forensic psychiatry has to do with both neuroscience and the law, neurolaw is of specific relevance for this psychiatric specialty. In this contribution, I will discuss three main research areas in neurolaw - revision, assessment, and intervention - and explore their relevance for forensic psychiatry. I will identify some valuable possibilities as well as some notable challenges - both technical and ethical - for forensic psychiatry regarding neurolaw developments.

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

During the last decade and a half, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been used to determine whether it is possible to detect concealed knowledge by examining brain activation patterns, with mixed results. Concealed information tests rely on the logic that a familiar item (probe) elicits a stronger response than unfamiliar, but otherwise comparable items (irrelevants). Previous work has shown that physical countermeasures can artificially modulate neural responses in concealed information tests, decreasing the accuracy of these methods. However, the question remains as to whether purely mental countermeasures, which are much more difficult to detect than physical ones, can also be effective. An fMRI study was conducted to address this question by assessing the effect of attentional countermeasures on the accuracy of the classification between knowledge and no-knowledge cases using both univariate and multivariate analyses. Results replicate previous work and show reliable group activation differences between the probe and the irrelevants in fronto-parietal networks. Critically, classification accuracy was generally reduced by the mental countermeasures, but only significantly so with region of interest analyses (both univariate and multivariate). For whole-brain analyses, classification accuracy was relatively low, but it was not significantly reduced by the countermeasures. These results indicate that mental countermeasure need to be addressed before these paradigms can be used in applied settings and that methods to defeat countermeasures, or at least to detect their use, need to be developed. HIGHLIGHTS: FMRI-based concealed information tests are vulnerable to mental countermeasures Measures based on regions of interest are affected by mental countermeasures Whole-brain analyses may be more robust than region of interest ones Methods to detect mental countermeasure use are needed for forensic applications.

Predicting Violent Behavior: What Can Neuroscience Add?

The ability to accurately predict violence and other forms of serious antisocial behavior would provide important societal benefits, and there is substantial enthusiasm for the potential predictive accuracy of neuroimaging techniques. Here, we review the current status of violence prediction using actuarial and clinical methods, and assess the current state of neuroprediction. We then outline several questions that need to be addressed by future studies of neuroprediction if neuroimaging and other neuroscientific markers are to be successfully translated into public policy.

The guilty brain: the utility of neuroimaging and neurostimulation studies in forensic field

Several studies have aimed to address the natural inability of humankind to detect deception and accurately discriminate lying from truth in the legal context. To date, it has been well established that telling a lie is a complex mental activity. During deception, many functions of higher cognition are involved: the decision to lie, withholding the truth, fabricating the lie, monitoring whether the receiver believes the lie, and, if necessary, adjusting the fabricated story and maintaining a consistent lie. In the previous 15 years, increasing interest in the neuroscience of deception has resulted in new possibilities to investigate and interfere with the ability to lie directly from the brain. Cognitive psychology, as well as neuroimaging and neurostimulation studies, are increasing the possibility that neuroscience will be useful for lie detection. This paper discusses the scientific validity of the literature on neuroimaging and neurostimulation regarding lie detection to understand whether scientific findings in this field have a role in the forensic setting. We considered how lie detection technology may contribute to addressing the detection of deception in the courtroom and discussed the conditions and limits in which these techniques reliably distinguish whether an individual is lying.

Integrating Brain Science and Law: Neuroscientific Evidence and Legal Perspectives on Protecting Individual Liberties

Advances in neuroscientific techniques have found increasingly broader applications, including in legal neuroscience (or “neurolaw”), where experts in the brain sciences are called to testify in the courtroom. But does the incursion of neuroscience into the legal sphere constitute a threat to individual liberties? And what legal protections are there against such threats? In this paper, we outline individual rights as they interact with neuroscientific methods. We then proceed to examine the current uses of neuroscientific evidence, and ultimately determine whether the rights of the individual are endangered by such approaches. Based on our analysis, we conclude that while federal evidence rules constitute a substantial hurdle for the use of neuroscientific evidence, more ethical safeguards are needed to protect against future violations of fundamental rights. Finally, we assert that it will be increasingly imperative for the legal and neuroscientific communities to work together to better define the limits, capabilities, and intended direction of neuroscientific methods applicable for use in law.

Multivariate Bayesian decoding of single-trial event-related fMRI responses for memory retrieval of voluntary actions

This study proposes a method for classifying event-related fMRI responses in a specialized setting of many known but few unknown stimuli presented in a rapid event-related design. Compared to block design fMRI signals, classification of the response to a single or a few stimulus trial(s) is not a trivial problem due to contamination by preceding events as well as the low signal-to-noise ratio. To overcome such problems, we proposed a single trial-based classification method of rapid event-related fMRI signals utilizing sparse multivariate Bayesian decoding of spatio-temporal fMRI responses. We applied the proposed method to classification of memory retrieval processes for two different classes of episodic memories: a voluntarily conducted experience and a passive experience induced by watching a video of others’ actions. A cross-validation showed higher classification performance of the proposed method compared to that of a support vector machine or of a classifier based on the general linear model. Evaluation of classification performances for one, two, and three stimuli from the same class and a correlation analysis between classification accuracy and target stimulus positions among trials suggest that presenting two target stimuli at longer inter-stimulus intervals is optimal in the design of classification experiments to identify the target stimuli. The proposed method for decoding subject-specific memory retrieval of voluntary behavior using fMRI would be useful in forensic applications in a natural environment, where many known trials can be extracted from a simulation of everyday tasks and few target stimuli from a crime scene.

Is anterior N2 enhancement a reliable electrophysiological index of concealed information?

Concealed information tests (CITs) are used to determine whether an individual possesses information about an item of interest. Event-related potential (ERP) measures in CITs have focused almost exclusively on the P3b component, showing that this component is larger when lying about the item of interest (probe) than telling the truth about control items (irrelevants). Recent studies have begun to examine other ERP components, such as the anterior N2, with mixed results. A seminal CIT study found that visual probes elicit a larger anterior N2 than irrelevants (Gamer and Berti, 2010) and suggested that this component indexes cognitive control processes engaged when lying about probes. However, this study did not control for potential intrinsic differences among the stimuli: the same probe and irrelevants were used for all participants, and there was no control condition composed of uninformed participants. Here, first we show that the N2 effect found in the study by Gamer and Berti (2010) was in large part due to stimulus differences, as the effect observed in a concealed information condition was comparable to that found in two matched control conditions without any concealed information (Experiments 1 and 2). Next, we addressed the issue of the generality of the N2 findings by counterbalancing a new set of stimuli across participants and by using a control condition with uninformed participants (Experiment 3). Results show that the probe did not elicit a larger anterior N2 than the irrelevants under these controlled conditions. These findings suggest that caution should be taken in using the N2 as an index of concealed information in CITs. Furthermore, they are a reminder that results of CIT studies (not only with ERPs) performed without stimulus counterbalancing and suitable control conditions may be confounded by differential intrinsic properties of the stimuli employed.

Uninstructed BIAT faking when ego depleted or in normal state: differential effect on brain and behavior

BACKGROUND

Deception can distort psychological tests on socially sensitive topics. Understanding the cerebral processes that are involved in such faking can be useful in detection and prevention of deception. Previous research shows that faking a brief implicit association test (BIAT) evokes a characteristic ERP response. It is not yet known whether temporarily available self-control resources moderate this response. We randomly assigned 22 participants (15 females, 24.23 ± 2.91 years old) to a counterbalanced repeated-measurements design. Participants first completed a Brief-IAT (BIAT) on doping attitudes as a baseline measure and were then instructed to fake a negative doping attitude both when self-control resources were depleted and non-depleted. Cerebral activity during BIAT performance was assessed using high-density EEG.

RESULTS

Compared to the baseline BIAT, event-related potentials showed a first interaction at the parietal P1, while significant post hoc differences were found only at the later occurring late positive potential. Here, significantly decreased amplitudes were recorded for 'normal' faking, but not in the depletion condition. In source space, enhanced activity was found for 'normal' faking in the bilateral temporoparietal junction. Behaviorally, participants were successful in faking the BIAT successfully in both conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

Results indicate that temporarily available self-control resources do not affect overt faking success on a BIAT. However, differences were found on an electrophysiological level. This indicates that while on a phenotypical level self-control resources play a negligible role in deliberate test faking the underlying cerebral processes are markedly different.

Tracking the truth: the effect of face familiarity on eye fixations during deception

In forensic investigations, suspects sometimes conceal recognition of a familiar person to protect co-conspirators or hide knowledge of a victim. The current experiment sought to determine whether eye fixations could be used to identify memory of known persons when lying about recognition of faces. Participants' eye movements were monitored whilst they lied and told the truth about recognition of faces that varied in familiarity (newly learned, famous celebrities, personally known). Memory detection by eye movements during recognition of personally familiar and famous celebrity faces was negligibly affected by lying, thereby demonstrating that detection of memory during lies is influenced by the prior learning of the face. By contrast, eye movements did not reveal lies robustly for newly learned faces. These findings support the use of eye movements as markers of memory during concealed recognition but also suggest caution when familiarity is only a consequence of one brief exposure.

Goal-Directed Modulation of Neural Memory Patterns: Implications for fMRI-Based Memory Detection

Remembering a past event elicits distributed neural patterns that can be distinguished from patterns elicited when encountering novel information. These differing patterns can be decoded with relatively high diagnostic accuracy for individual memories using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) of fMRI data. Brain-based memory detection--if valid and reliable--would have clear utility beyond the domain of cognitive neuroscience, in the realm of law, marketing, and beyond. However, a significant boundary condition on memory decoding validity may be the deployment of "countermeasures": strategies used to mask memory signals. Here we tested the vulnerability of fMRI-based memory detection to countermeasures, using a paradigm that bears resemblance to eyewitness identification. Participants were scanned while performing two tasks on previously studied and novel faces: (1) a standard recognition memory task; and (2) a task wherein they attempted to conceal their true memory state. Univariate analyses revealed that participants were able to strategically modulate neural responses, averaged across trials, in regions implicated in memory retrieval, including the hippocampus and angular gyrus. Moreover, regions associated with goal-directed shifts of attention and thought substitution supported memory concealment, and those associated with memory generation supported novelty concealment. Critically, whereas MVPA enabled reliable classification of memory states when participants reported memory truthfully, the ability to decode memory on individual trials was compromised, even reversing, during attempts to conceal memory. Together, these findings demonstrate that strategic goal states can be deployed to mask memory-related neural patterns and foil memory decoding technology, placing a significant boundary condition on their real-world utility.

Cerebral correlates of faking: evidence from a brief implicit association test on doping attitudes

Direct assessment of attitudes toward socially sensitive topics can be affected by deception attempts. Reaction-time based indirect measures, such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT), are less susceptible to such biases. Neuroscientific evidence shows that deception can evoke characteristic ERP differences. However, the cerebral processes involved in faking an IAT are still unknown. We randomly assigned 20 university students (15 females, 24.65 ± 3.50 years of age) to a counterbalanced repeated-measurements design, requesting them to complete a Brief-IAT (BIAT) on attitudes toward doping without deception instruction, and with the instruction to fake positive and negative doping attitudes. Cerebral activity during BIAT completion was assessed using high-density EEG. Event-related potentials during faking revealed enhanced frontal and reduced occipital negativity, starting around 150 ms after stimulus presentation. Further, a decrease in the P300 and LPP components was observed. Source analyses showed enhanced activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus between 150 and 200 ms during faking, thought to reflect the suppression of automatic responses. Further, more activity was found for faking in the bilateral middle occipital gyri and the bilateral temporoparietal junction. Results indicate that faking reaction-time based tests alter brain processes from early stages of processing and reveal the cortical sources of the effects. Analyzing the EEG helps to uncover response patterns in indirect attitude tests and broadens our understanding of the neural processes involved in such faking. This knowledge might be useful for uncovering faking in socially sensitive contexts, where attitudes are likely to be concealed.

Memory detection using fMRI - does the encoding context matter?

Recent research revealed that the presentation of crime related details during the Concealed Information Test (CIT) reliably activates a network of bilateral inferior frontal, right medial frontal and right temporal-parietal brain regions. However, the ecological validity of these findings as well as the influence of the encoding context are still unclear. To tackle these questions, three different groups of subjects participated in the current study. Two groups of guilty subjects encoded critical details either only by planning (guilty intention group) or by really enacting (guilty action group) a complex, realistic mock crime. In addition, a group of informed innocent subjects encoded half of the relevant details in a neutral context. Univariate analyses showed robust activation differences between known relevant compared to neutral details in the previously identified ventral frontal-parietal network with no differences between experimental groups. Moreover, validity estimates for average changes in neural activity were similar between groups when focusing on the known details and did not differ substantially from the validity of electrodermal recordings. Additional multivariate analyses provided evidence for differential patterns of activity in the ventral fronto-parietal network between the guilty action and the informed innocent group and yielded higher validity coefficients for the detection of crime related knowledge when relying on whole brain data. Together, these findings demonstrate that an fMRI-based CIT enables the accurate detection of concealed crime related memories, largely independent of encoding context. On the one hand, this indicates that even persons who planned a (mock) crime could be validly identified as having specific crime related knowledge. On the other hand, innocents with such knowledge have a high risk of failing the test, at least when considering univariate changes of neural activation.

Facilitating the right but not left DLPFC by TMS decreases truthfulness of object-naming responses

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) participates in many mental functions involving cognitive control. This also applies to processes underlying deception. Recently it was shown that, compared to the opposite effect found with left-hemisphere 1-Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the DLPFC, right-hemisphere stimulation decreased the propensity to produce untruthful responses in a subsequent task where subjects had freedom to name presented stimulus-objects either veridically or nonveridically. In a similar experiment, the purpose of the present study was to test whether changing the rTMS protocol from the disrupting to facilitatory type can lead to opposite results. When trains of 10-Hz pulses were delivered to the right DLPFC, propensity to lie increased while similar left-hemisphere DLPFC stimulation did not change the rate of untruthful responses. We can conclude that the way how right DLPFC and other areas functionally associated with it are involved in producing truthful or deliberately deceptive statements about perceived objects considerably depends on what are the parameters of stimulation by which functionality of this system is manipulated.

Lying in neuropsychology

The issue of lying occurs in neuropsychology especially when examinations are conducted in a forensic context. When a subject intentionally either presents non-existent deficits or exaggerates their severity to obtain financial or material compensation, this behaviour is termed malingering. Malingering is discussed in the general framework of lying in psychology, and the different procedures used by neuropsychologists to evidence a lack of collaboration at examination are briefly presented and discussed. When a lack of collaboration is observed, specific emphasis is placed on the difficulty in unambiguously establishing that this results from the patient's voluntary decision.

Functional MRI-based lie detection: scientific and societal challenges

Functional MRI (fMRI)-based lie detection has been marketed as a tool for enhancing personnel selection, strengthening national security and protecting personal reputations, and at least three US courts have been asked to admit the results of lie detection scans as evidence during trials. How well does fMRI-based lie detection perform, and how should the courts, and society more generally, respond? Here, we address various questions — some of which are based on a meta-analysis of published studies — concerning the scientific state of the art in fMRI-based lie detection and its legal status, and discuss broader ethical and societal implications. We close with three general policy recommendations.

Countering countermeasures: detecting identity lies by detecting conscious breakthrough

One major drawback of deception detection is its vulnerability to countermeasures, whereby participants wilfully modulate their physiological or neurophysiological response to critical guilt-determining stimuli. One reason for this vulnerability is that stimuli are usually presented slowly. This allows enough time to consciously apply countermeasures, once the role of stimuli is determined. However, by increasing presentation speed, stimuli can be placed on the fringe of awareness, rendering it hard to perceive those that have not been previously identified, hindering the possibility to employ countermeasures. We tested an identity deception detector by presenting first names in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation and instructing participants to lie about their own identity. We also instructed participants to apply a series of countermeasures. The method proved resilient, remaining effective at detecting deception under all countermeasures.

What’s on Your Mind?

Lie detectors can be applied in a wide variety of settings. But this advantage comes with a considerable cost: False positives. The applicability of the Concealed Information Test (CIT) is more limited, yet when it can be applied, the risk of false accusations can be set a priori at a very low level. The CIT assesses the recognition of critical information that is known only by the examiners and the culprit, for example, the face of an accomplice. Large effects are obtained with the CIT, whether combined with peripheral, brain, or motor responses. We see three important challenges for the CIT. First, the false negative rate of the CIT can be substantial, particularly under realistic circumstances. A possible solution seems to restrict the CIT to highly salient details. Second, there exist effective faking strategies. Future research will tell whether faking can be detected or even prevented (e.g., using covert measures). Third, recognition of critical crime details does not necessarily result from criminal activity. It is therefore important to properly embed the CIT in the investigative process, while taking care when drawing conclusions from the test outcome (recognition, not guilt).

Mind Reading Using Neuroimaging

Traditional lie detection tools, such as the polygraph, voice stress analysis, or special interrogation techniques, rely on behavioral or psychophysiological manifestations of deception. With the advent of neuroimaging techniques, the question emerged whether it would be possible to directly identify deceit in the part of the body where it is generated: the brain. After a few promising studies, these techniques became soon commercially available and there have been attempts to use such results in the court in recent years. The current article reviews the development of neuroimaging techniques in the field of deception detection and critically discusses the potential but also the shortcomings of such methods. Unfortunately, the majority of research in this field was rather unsystematic and neglected the accumulated knowledge regarding methodological pitfalls that were extensively discussed in the scientific community in conjunction with the polygraph. Therefore, neuroimaging studies on deception largely differ with respect to the experimental paradigm (the interrogation technique), the methods for analyzing the data, and the procedures to obtain individual diagnoses. Moreover, most studies used artificial laboratory settings that differ considerably from real-life applications. As a consequence, neuroimaging techniques are not applicable for detecting deception in individual field cases at the moment. However, recent advantages such as multivariate pattern analysis might yield novel neuroimaging applications in the near future that are capable of improving established techniques for detecting deception or concealed knowledge.

Possible role of an error detection mechanism in brain processing of deception: PET-fMRI study

To investigate brain maintenance of deliberate deception the positron emission tomography and the event related functional MRI studies were performed. We used an experimental paradigm that presupposed free choices between equally beneficial deceptive or honest actions. Experimental task simulated the "Cheat" card game which aims to defeat an opponent by sequential deceptive and honest claims. Results of both the PET and the fMRI studies revealed that execution of both deliberately deceptive and honest claims is associated with fronto-parietal brain network comprised of inferior and middle frontal gyri, precentral gyrus (BA 6), caudate nucleus, and inferior parietal lobule. Direct comparison between those claims, balanced in terms of decision making and action outcome (gain and losses), revealed activation of areas specifically associated with deception execution: precentral gyrus (BA 6), caudate nuclei, thalamus and inferior parietal lobule (BA 39/40). The obtained experimental data were discussed in relation to a possible role of an error detection system in processing deliberate deception.

Prospects of functional magnetic resonance imaging as lie detector

Following the demise of the polygraph, supporters of assisted scientific lie detection tools have enthusiastically appropriated neuroimaging technologies "as the savior of scientifically verifiable lie detection in the courtroom" (Gerard, 2008: 5). These proponents believe the future impact of neuroscience "will be inevitable, dramatic, and will fundamentally alter the way the law does business" (Erickson, 2010: 29); however, such enthusiasm may prove premature. For in nearly every article published by independent researchers in peer reviewed journals, the respective authors acknowledge that fMRI research, processes, and technology are insufficiently developed and understood for gatekeepers to even consider introducing these neuroimaging measures into criminal courts as they stand today for the purpose of determining the veracity of statements made. Regardless of how favorable their analyses of fMRI or its future potential, they all acknowledge the presence of issues yet to be resolved. Even assuming a future where these issues are resolved and an appropriate fMRI lie-detection process is developed, its integration into criminal trials is not assured for the very success of such a future system may necessitate its exclusion from courtrooms on the basis of existing legal and ethical prohibitions. In this piece, aimed for a multidisciplinary readership, we seek to highlight and bring together the multitude of hurdles which would need to be successfully overcome before fMRI can (if ever) be a viable applied lie detection system. We argue that the current status of fMRI studies on lie detection meets neither basic legal nor scientific standards. We identify four general classes of hurdles (scientific, legal and ethical, operational, and social) and provide an overview on the stages and operations involved in fMRI studies, as well as the difficulties of translating these laboratory protocols into a practical criminal justice environment. It is our overall conclusion that fMRI is unlikely to constitute a viable lie detector for criminal courts.

Guidelines for the ethical use of neuroimages in medical testimony: report of a multidisciplinary consensus conference

SUMMARY

With rapid advances in neuroimaging technology, there is growing concern over potential misuse of neuroradiologic imaging data in legal matters. On December 7 and 8, 2012, a multidisciplinary consensus conference, Use and Abuse of Neuroimaging in the Courtroom, was held at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Through this interactive forum, a highly select group of experts-including neuroradiologists, neurologists, forensic psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, neuroscientists, legal scholars, imaging statisticians, judges, practicing attorneys, and neuroethicists-discussed the complex issues involved in the use of neuroimaging data entered into legal evidence and for associated expert testimony. The specific contexts of criminal cases, child abuse, and head trauma were especially considered. The purpose of the conference was to inform the development of guidelines on expert testimony for the American Society of Neuroradiology and to provide principles for courts on the ethical use of neuroimaging data as evidence. This report summarizes the conference and resulting recommendations.

Detection of deception based on fMRI activation patterns underlying the production of a deceptive response and receiving feedback about the success of the deception after a mock murder crime

The ability of a deceiver to track a victim's ongoing judgments about the truthfulness of the deceit can be critical for successful deception. However, no study has yet investigated the neural circuits underlying receiving a judgment about one's lie. To explore this issue, we used a modified Guilty Knowledge Test in a mock murder situation to simultaneously record the neural responses involved in producing deception and later when judgments of that deception were made. Producing deception recruited the bilateral inferior parietal lobules (IPLs), right ventral lateral prefrontal (VLPF) areas and right striatum, among which the activation of the right VLPF contributed mostly to diagnosing the identities of the participants, correctly diagnosing 81.25% of 'murderers' and 81.25% of 'innocents'. Moreover, the participant's response when their deception was successful uniquely recruited the right middle frontal gyrus, bilateral IPLs, bilateral orbitofrontal cortices, bilateral middle temporal gyrus and left cerebellum, among which the right IPL contributed mostly to diagnosing participants' identities, correctly diagnosing 93.75% of murderers and 87.5% of innocents. This study shows that neural activity associated with being a successful liar (or not) is a feasible indicator for detecting lies and may be more valid than neural activity associated with producing deception.

Frontoparietal activity during deceptive responses in the P300-based guilty knowledge test: an sLORETA study

The cortical source activity during the P300-based guilty knowledge test (GKT) conducted using Korean sentences was investigated. Thirty male students performed a guilty or an innocent scenario, and then underwent an electroencephalogram test. The stimuli consisted of target, probe, and irrelevant stimuli that were presented visually. A target stimulus is a task-relevant stimulus that is presented rarely, attracts subjects' attention, and induces a P300 wave. A probe stimulus, also presented rarely, contains crime-relevant information that induces P300 in a guilty subject. A guilty subject would be also attentive to the probe stimulus as to the target stimulus. An irrelevant stimulus is not related to the task or to the crime, and is frequently presented. Event-related potential (ERP) data showed a marked difference between the guilty and innocent groups. Compared to irrelevant stimuli, the probe stimulus elicited larger P300 amplitude in the bilateral frontoparietal region in the guilty group. However, this pattern was not observed in the innocent group. Standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) analysis showed significant activation increases for the probe stimulus in the guilty group. It appears that the guilty and innocent groups use different cognitive mechanisms when processing the crime-relevant sentence. With regards to the cortical activity in response to the probe stimulus, the frontal activation for verb elements seems to reflect a working memory process, episodic memory retrieval, and response inhibition, while parietal activation for complement (adverb) and object (noun) elements seems to reflect selective attention and target discrimination. To our knowledge, this is the first research to examine the cortical source of the ERP evoked by the P300-based GKT using separate Korean sentence elements.

Telling lies: the irrepressible truth?

Telling a lie takes longer than telling the truth but precisely why remains uncertain. We investigated two processes suggested to increase response times, namely the decision to lie and the construction of a lie response. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were directed or chose whether to lie or tell the truth. A colored square was presented and participants had to name either the true color of the square or lie about it by claiming it was a different color. In both experiments we found that there was a greater difference between lying and telling the truth when participants were directed to lie compared to when they chose to lie. In Experiments 3 and 4, we compared response times when participants had only one possible lie option to a choice of two or three possible options. There was a greater lying latency effect when questions involved more than one possible lie response. Experiment 5 examined response choice mechanisms through the manipulation of lie plausibility. Overall, results demonstrate several distinct mechanisms that contribute to additional processing requirements when individuals tell a lie.