Abstract
A classification concealed information test (CIT) used the “brain fingerprinting” method of applying P300 event-related potential (ERP) in detecting information that is (1) acquired in real life and (2) unique to US Navy experts in military medicine. Military medicine experts and non-experts were asked to push buttons in response to three types of text stimuli. Targets contain known information relevant to military medicine, are identified to subjects as relevant, and require pushing one button. Subjects are told to push another button to all other stimuli. Probes contain concealed information relevant to military medicine, and are not identified to subjects. Irrelevants contain equally plausible, but incorrect/irrelevant information. Error rate was 0%. Median and mean statistical confidences for individual determinations were 99.9% with no indeterminates (results lacking sufficiently high statistical confidence to be classified). We compared error rate and statistical confidence for determinations of both information present and information absent produced by classification CIT (Is a probe ERP more similar to a target or to an irrelevant ERP?) vs. comparison CIT (Does a probe produce a larger ERP than an irrelevant?) using P300 plus the late negative component (LNP; together, P300-MERMER). Comparison CIT produced a significantly higher error rate (20%) and lower statistical confidences: mean 67%; information-absent mean was 28.9%, less than chance (50%). We compared analysis using P300 alone with the P300 + LNP. P300 alone produced the same 0% error rate but significantly lower statistical confidences. These findings add to the evidence that the brain fingerprinting methods as described here provide sufficient conditions to produce less than 1% error rate and greater than 95% median statistical confidence in a CIT on information obtained in the course of real life that is characteristic of individuals with specific training, expertise, or organizational affiliation.
Highlights
THE CLASSIFICATION CIT The concealed information test (CIT) or guilty knowledge test (GKT) has been used to detect concealed information since Lykken (1959)
It compares the results obtained with the classification CIT with P300 + LNP with the other two methods: classification CIT with P300 and comparison CIT
Our results suggest that the classification CIT, when practiced according the methods and standards described here, is a reliable and valid method for detecting concealed information obtained in the course of real life that is characteristic of individuals with www.frontiersin.org specific training, expertise, and/or affiliation with a particular agency or organization
Summary
THE CLASSIFICATION CIT The concealed information test (CIT) or guilty knowledge test (GKT) has been used to detect concealed information since Lykken (1959). Farwell and Donchin (1991) introduced three innovations in the CIT (Farwell, 2013) They (1) applied a classification CIT, rather than the conventional comparison CIT; (2) used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) as the dependent measure; and (3) computed a statistical confidence for each individual determination using the technique of bootstrapping. Several researchers subsequently applied ERPs and bootstrapping in a comparison CIT (e.g., Johnson and Rosenfeld, 1992; Rosenfeld et al, 2004, 2008; Meixner and Rosenfeld, 2014). This is a fundamentally different paradigm (see Discussion and Appendix 2)
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