The Effects of Mental Countermeasures on Psychophysiological Memory Detection: Facilitating Orientation Is Easy, Stopping Inhibition Is Not

The concealed information test (CIT) is a highly valid method for the detection of concealed knowledge. It relies on differential physiological responses to critical compared to control items. Guilty individuals may however attempt to distort these reactions by using countermeasures (CMs). The prese...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of applied research in memory and cognition 2024-06, Vol.13 (2), p.219-227
Main Authors: klein Selle, Nathalie, Ben-Shakhar, Gershon
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Female
Human
Male
Memory
Physiological Arousal
Physiology
Psychophysiology
Responses
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Summary:The concealed information test (CIT) is a highly valid method for the detection of concealed knowledge. It relies on differential physiological responses to critical compared to control items. Guilty individuals may however attempt to distort these reactions by using countermeasures (CMs). The present preregistered study compared two types of countermeasures: (a) a classical countermeasure designed to affect orientation to the critical items and, as such, skin conductance responses (SCRs), and (b) a novel countermeasure designed to affect inhibition attempts and, as such, the respiration line length (RLL) and heart rate (HR). The classical countermeasure reduced the SCR CIT effect, supporting the idea that guilty individuals can facilitate orientation. The novel countermeasure did not affect the RLL and HR measures. This suggests that guilty individuals might not be able to block their instinctive drive to inhibit physiological arousal. Thus, the RLL and HR seem more suitable for real-life cases where countermeasures are suspected. General Audience Summary Everyone has something to hide. Although most secrets are trivial and innocent, some can pose a threat to society and need to be unveiled. Researchers have therefore developed the so-called concealed information test (CIT). This test checks whether individuals have knowledge of certain critical details (such as the murder weapon). Importantly, when faced with these details, a unique physiological response pattern occurs-skin conductance increases because we start sweating more heavily, while respiration and heart rate reduce. In light of this, one may wonder whether it is possible to willingly distort these physiological responses. In other words, can one fool the CIT and be classified as having "no knowledge"? To explore this question, the current experiment tested two distortion methods-each method was designed to affect a single cognitive process known to be involved in the CIT (namely, orienting and inhibition). As expected, skin conductance was affected by the first method. However, neither method affected respiration or heart rate. These results confirm the theoretical idea that different physiological measures in the CIT reflect different cognitive processes. Moreover, they suggest that respiration and heart rate are more robust to faking.
ISSN:2211-3681
2211-369X
DOI:10.1037/mac0000123