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

Effectiveness of the world anti-doping agency's e-learning programme for anti-doping education on knowledge of, explicit and implicit attitudes towards, and likelihood of doping among Chinese college athletes and non-athletes

Background

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of the World Anti-Doping Agency's e-learning programme for anti-doping education on knowledge of, explicit and implicit attitudes towards, and likelihood of doping among Chinese college athletes and non-athletes.

Method

Thirty-two young adults (including 16 college athletes) were recruited to receive the Athlete Learning Program about Health and Anti-Doping (ALPHA) intervention (Zh-hans version). Another 32 young adults were recruited for no-treatment control purposes. Before and immediately after the intervention, the ALPHA test, performance enhancement attitude scale, doping likelihood scale, and brief implicit association test (BIAT) were performed. Cortical activity during the BIAT test was monitored using a functional near-infrared spectroscopy instrument.

Results

Significant intervention effects were observed for knowledge (p < 0.01, η² = 0.21) and explicit attitude (p < 0.05, η² = 0.12) but not for doping likelihood (p > 0.05; benefit situation: η² = 0.04; cost situation: η² = 0.02). Compared with the non-athletes, the college athletes reported lower doping likelihood scores in benefit situations (e.g., financial gain, p < 0.05, η² = 0.10). Regarding the BIAT task, the experimental effect was successfully induced by different semantic associations between the concepts and the attitude (doping + like vs. doping + dislike). The mean reaction times (p < 0.01, η² = 0.36) and error rate (p < 0.01, η² = 0.34) in the doping-like block were higher than those in the doping-dislike block. Moreover, oxygenated haemoglobin (oxy-Hb) in response to BIAT interference in the temporoparietal junction-related channels was increased during the post-intervention test (p < 0.05, η² varied from 0.09 to 0.16).

Conclusions

The findings suggest that the online anti-doping education programme is partially effective among Chinese college athletes and non-athletes. Furthermore, our findings reflect enhanced cognitive control after the education intervention to suppress a prepotent implicit attitude towards doping.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13011-022-00459-1.

Too hard to forget? ERPs to remember, forget, and uninformative cues in the encoding phase of item-method directed forgetting

In item-method directed forgetting, worse memory performance occurs for to-be-forgotten (TBF) than for to-be-remembered (TBR) items. However, recently TBF items have been found to be recognized more accurately than uninformative (UI) items not associated with any specific task. Here, we compare ERPs elicited by cues signaling the remember or the forget instruction with those elicited by uninformative cues. Participants were presented with a series of complex pictures, each followed by a symbolic TBR, TBF, or UI cue. On a yes-no recognition test, accuracy was higher for TBR than for both TBF and UI items. However, TBF items were recognized more accurately than UI items. ERPs elicited by the TBR cue were larger than ERPs elicited by both TBF and UI cues at the frontal P2, the late frontal negativity, and the late parietal positivity complex. This is consistent with more attention capture, selective rehearsal, and long-term memory encoding of TBR. In contrast, both TBF and UI cues induced a larger frontal N2 than TBR cues. Critically, TBF elicited a larger late right-frontal positivity than both UI and TBR cues and a larger late parietal positivity than UI cues. Moreover, the late right-frontal positivity was correlated with better recognition performance. It may therefore reflect processing orientation rather than inhibition per se. Results suggest that, when compared to UI cues, both TBR and TBF cues are processed actively. Distinct processing is seen at right frontal and centroparietal positive ERPs that may mediate better subsequent recognition of TBF than of UI items.

Funktionelle Nahinfrarotspektroskopie in der sportpsychologischen Forschung

Zusammenfassung. Ziel des Beitrags ist die Vorstellung der funktionellen Nahinfrarotspektroskopie (fNIRS) als bildgebendes Verfahren, welches zur Messung kortikaler Prozesse während sportlicher Aktivität eingesetzt werden kann. Im Vergleich mit anderen bildgebenden Verfahren ist fNIRS sehr portabel und weniger anfällig für Bewegungsartefakte. Daher ist fNIRS potentiell eine vielversprechende Ergänzung zu bereits in der sportpsychologischen Forschung genutzten neurowissenschaftlichen Methoden. Dieser Beitrag konzentriert sich auf eine kurze Darstellung der grundlegenden physikalischen Prinzipien von fNIRS und eine Analyse der relativen Stärken und Schwächen von fNIRS mit Blick auf den Einsatz in der sportpsychologischen Forschung. Anschließend werden einige fNIRS basierte Forschungsergebnisse erörtert, die sportpsychologische Forschungsfragen betreffen. Abschließend wird beispielhaft eine mögliche sportpsychologische Forschungsfrage vorgestellt, zu deren Untersuchung fNIRS eingesetzt werden kann.

Selective visual attention to emotional words: Early parallel frontal and visual activations followed by interactive effects in visual cortex

Human brains spontaneously differentiate between various emotional and neutral stimuli, including written words whose emotional quality is symbolic. In the electroencephalogram (EEG), emotional-neutral processing differences are typically reflected in the early posterior negativity (EPN, 200-300 ms) and the late positive potential (LPP, 400-700 ms). These components are also enlarged by task-driven visual attention, supporting the assumption that emotional content naturally drives attention. Still, the spatio-temporal dynamics of interactions between emotional stimulus content and task-driven attention remain to be specified. Here, we examine this issue in visual word processing. Participants attended to negative, neutral, or positive nouns while high-density EEG was recorded. Emotional content and top-down attention both amplified the EPN component in parallel. On the LPP, by contrast, emotion and attention interacted: Explicit attention to emotional words led to a substantially larger amplitude increase than did explicit attention to neutral words. Source analysis revealed early parallel effects of emotion and attention in bilateral visual cortex and a later interaction of both in right visual cortex. Distinct effects of attention were found in inferior, middle and superior frontal, paracentral, and parietal areas, as well as in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Results specify separate and shared mechanisms of emotion and attention at distinct processing stages. Hum Brain Mapp 37:3575-3587, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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.

Cerebral Correlates of Automatic Associations Towards Performance Enhancing Substances

The direct assessment of explicit attitudes toward performance enhancing substances, for example Neuroenhancement or doping in sports, can be affected by social desirability biases and cheating attempts. According to Dual Process Theories of cognition, indirect measures like the Implicit Association Test (IAT) measure automatic associations toward a topic (as opposed to explicit attitudes measured by self-report measures). Such automatic associations are thought to occur rapidly and to evade voluntary control. However, whether or not such indirect tests actually reflect automatic associations is difficult to validate. Electroencephalography (EEG) has a superior time resolution which can differentiate between highly automatic compared to more elaborate processing stages. We therefore used EEG to examine on which processing stages cortical differences between negative or positive attitudes to doping occur, and whether or not these differences can be related to BIAT scores. We tested 42 university students (31 females, 24.43 ± 3.17 years old), who were requested to complete a brief doping IAT (BIAT) on attitudes toward doping. Cerebral activity during doping BIAT completion was assessed using high-density EEG. Behaviorally, participants D-scores exhibited negative attitudes toward doping, represented by faster reaction times in the doping + dislike pairing task. Event-related potentials (ERPs) revealed earliest effects between 200 and 300 ms. Here, a relatively larger occipital positivity was found for the doping + dislike pairing task. Further, in the LPP time range between 400 and 600 ms a larger late positive potential was found for the doping + dislike pairing task over central regions. These LPP amplitude differences were successfully predicting participants' BIAT D-scores. Results indicate that event-related potentials differentiate between positive and negative doping attitudes at stages of mid-latency. However, it seems that IAT scores can be predicted only by the later occurring LPP. Our study is the first to investigate the cerebral correlates that contribute to test scores obtained in the indirect testing of automatic associations toward doping. The implications of our results for the broader NE concept are discussed in light of the conceptual similarity of doping and NE.