Abstract
BackgroundTwo experimental procedures (cue-target and target-cue) were used in studying the processes of deception. How the task will affect participants' performances is not clear. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of the order of presentation of cue and target on the processes of deception.MethodsA face evaluation task was employed to test and compare the order effect of the deception-indicating cue and the target stimulus in studying deception (i.e., which research procedure is more sensitive in distinguishing different experimental conditions and which is more likely to represent the deception process in daily life). Behavioral responses and event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded while participants made truthful and deceptive responses about their evaluation.ResultsResponse-locked ERP showed that both deceptive conditions in cue-target and target-cue procedures elicited medial frontal negativities. However, the results in the ERP distribution regions, the ERP amplitudes and source estimation results were different in the two procedures. The cue-target procedure elicited a more negative ERP deflection between 40 ms and 90 ms over the central-frontal scalp regions than the target-cue procedures. Source localizations in cue-target were identified in three clusters, namely, medial frontal gyrus, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and ventral medial frontal gyrus. In the target-cue procedure, the sources were identified in the frontal areas.DiscussionDifferent presenting orders of the cue and target stimuli induced different neural activities. Further, the cue-target procedure could represent the process of deception better than the target-cue procedure.
Highlights
Two experimental procedures were used in studying the processes of deception
Brain-imaging techniques such as event related potential (ERP) and functional magnetic resonance imaging enable the precise recordings of brain activities that associated with the process of deception
Peak latencies were compared between deceptive conditions in cue-target and targetcue procedures, no significant difference was found in peak latencies between these two procedures [F(2,30) = 1.021, p > 0.05]
Summary
Two experimental procedures (cue-target and target-cue) were used in studying the processes of deception. ERPs are widely used in studies on deception because they can provide precise temporal resolution of neural activity. An important ERP in measuring deception is the medial frontal negativities which can be elicited between 0-100 ms after a response. Medial frontal negativity amplitude is largest over the medial central-frontal scalp. This activity was initially found in conflict resolution tasks [8,9], and was labeled as the error-related negativity (ERN). Some investigators suggested that error related negativity could represent the activity in neural circuits which are responsible for the executive processes, such as correcting an error and/or monitoring the participant’s actions, they name it medial frontal negativity [8,10]
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