Abstract
Countermeasures pose a serious threat to the effectiveness of the Concealed Information Test (CIT). In a CIT experiment, Rosenfeld and Labkovsky in Psychophysiology 47(6):1002–1010, (2010) observed a previously unknown positive ERP component at about 900 ms post-stimulus at Fz and Cz that could potentially serve as an index of countermeasure use. Here, we explored the hypothesis that this component, termed P900, occurs in response to a signal that no further specific response is required in a trial, and could thus appear in countermeasure users that respond differentially depending on the stimulus that appears. In the present experiments, subjects viewed four non-meaningful (irrelevant) dates and one oddball date. In three experiments, we examined P900’s antecedent conditions. In the first, the unique item was a personally relevant oddball (the subject’s birthdate). In a second, the unique item was a non-personally relevant oddball (an irrelevant date in a unique font color). In a third, all dates were irrelevant. We speculated that the presence of an oddball would not be necessary for P900. All participants made countermeasure-like responses following two specific irrelevant dates. As hypothesized, P900s were seen to non-responded-to irrelevant and oddball stimuli in all subjects but not to responded-to irrelevant stimuli, and the presence of an oddball was not necessary for elicitation of P900. This finding has potential application in deception settings—the presence of a P300 accompanied by the presence of a P900 in response to non-countered stimuli could provide evidence of incriminating knowledge accompanied by the attempt to use countermeasures to evade detection.
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Notes
For a detailed explanation of the complex trial protocol, see Rosenfeld et al. (2008). The basic difference between the complex trial protocol and the typical older P300-based CIT, sometimes termed the “three-stimulus protocol,” is the grouping of stimuli that are presented to the participant. The three-stimulus protocol has a single trial type, on which one of three types of stimuli may be presented, a probe, an irrelevant, or a target (a target is a non-meaningful stimulus, like an irrelevant, that requires a special response from the participant in order to force attention to the task). In contrast, the complex trial protocol divides each trial into two separate stimulus presentation periods: during the first period either a probe or an irrelevant is presented, and during the second period either a target or a nontarget is presented, as described above.
While some recent P300-based CIT research has used mental countermeasures, as those used in Rosenfeld and Labkovsky (2010), CIT countermeasures have traditionally been physical movements, such as a wiggling of the finger or toe. For example, Rosenfeld et al. (2004) instructed each participant to press a finger imperceptibly against his leg; highly similar to the overt button presses used here. We chose to use explicit movements like this because they allow the experimenter to monitor that participants are actually making responses, and they also allow for the measurement of reaction time to the button presses.
We have since replicated the P900 again in a deception context, in a recent paper (in this journal) examining the effects of various numbers of countermeasures against the P300-based CIT (Labkovsky and Rosenfeld 2011). In that study, P900 was observed again in probe and noncountered stimuli but not in countered stimuli, as would be expected under our working hypothesis of the cognitive processes that lead to P900.
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Meixner, J.B., Labkovsky, E., Peter Rosenfeld, J. et al. P900: A Putative Novel ERP Component that Indexes Countermeasure Use in the P300-Based Concealed Information Test. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 38, 121–132 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10484-013-9216-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10484-013-9216-7