Neuroenhancement and Therapy in National Defense Contexts
L. Syd M Johnson, Karen S. Rommelfanger in The Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics, 2017
One type of deception involves lying about or omitting knowledge of some person or event. A major task of interrogators is to retrieve this concealed information. “Brain fingerprinting” allegedly accomplishes this by correlating a particular brain wave, the P300 response, with the perception of something familiar (Brainwave Science, 2015). Since familiar information elicits a neurological signature detectable by EEG, the idea is that interrogators could present a suspect with information, such as a photograph, containing information about a crime scene. Ideally, only the guilty culprit will be familiar with the crime’s details, and so only that person’s brain will produce the P300 wave in response to the photograph. Of course, confounding variables abound, such as hearing about the crime on the news. Despite substantial controversy, including allegations of pseudoscience (Brandom, 2015), brain fingerprinting has been marketed for years to assist in national security, counterterrorism, and law enforcement (Brainwave Science, 2015). Evidence produced by a similar brain scanning technology supposedly proved the presence of “experiential knowledge” of a crime concealed in a suspect’s brain, leading to a conviction and life sentence in an Indian murder trial. Upon review by a higher court, the sentence was suspended based on a lack of compelling evidence (Murphy, 2009). MRI is also marketed for deception detection (No Lie MRI, 2015), and as with brain fingerprinting, scientists tend to question its accuracy and utility (Farah et al., 2014).
Deception in Nonhumans
Harold V. Hall, Joseph G. Poirier in Detecting Malingering and Deception, 2020
At the human level, deliberate and cunning deception usually targets some perceived personal gain for the deceiver (Quiatt, 1987). That is, the deceptive behavior is not motivated primarily by survival needs alone. Unlike what is observed in the nonhuman world, human deceptive behavior can be motivated by pursuit of monetary gain, escape from criminal charges, or other devious motivations involving some type of perceived personal advantage. In other cases of human deception, the quest can be primarily driven by satisfaction at an emotional level. Examples would include circumstances of humans perceiving that they have been wronged, cheated, or bested in some way. In these circumstances, emotional restitution or revenge in a variety of forms becomes the goal. There is, of course, always the possibility of such human dynamics becoming circular, and then extending between, and beyond, the original players. These circumstances can morph into ultimate forms of human versus human perversion including war between nations.
Deception, dissociation and malingering
John C. Gunn, Pamela J. Taylor in Forensic Psychiatry, 2014
Confabulation is the falsification of memory occurring in clear consciousness in association with an organically derived amnesia (Berlyne, 1972). On occasion, it is the fabricating of false statements by someone with impaired memory in order to cover his or her embarrassment at forgetting. It is typically encountered in amnesic disorders when the patients lack insight into their impairment and, therefore, would be incapable of constructing falsifications to cover a deficit which they were unaware existed. Bonhoeffer (1904) distinguished between ‘momentary’ confabulation, where the patient, when asked specifically about recent events, responds by recounting more distant unrelated memories and ‘fantastic’ confabulations which involved spontaneous creations, often grandiose or absurd. The fantastic, or spontaneous, confabulations tend to be associated with amnesias in which there is associated frontal lobe dysfunction, whereas the provoked, or momentary confabulations, are the result of an attempt to respond to specific enquiries in those with a defective memory. It is found in amnesic patients and, to a lesser extent, in normal subjects whose memory fails them for some reason (Kopelman, 1987a). It is not a form of intentional deception.
Can Emotional Awareness of Liars Influence Deception Detection Effectiveness?
Published in Journal of Personality Assessment, 2021
Adrianna Wielgopolan, Kamil K. Imbir
Deception is typically defined as the act of intentionally making someone believe in a statement or fact the deceiver knows is not true (Ekman, 2009; Zuckerman et al., 1981). Intentionality must be especially stressed in this definition, therefore excluding cases in which someone is giving false information while honestly and completely believing it is true. Vrij (2002) also postulates the requirement of no warning before lying: if we go to the theater, we know about the lie; we actually want to be deceived for a moment by an actor telling us they are someone else. Consequently, a true lie is something unexpected yet very purposeful; it does not need to be verbal (e.g. withholding information), however, for the purposes of this study, we will mostly refer to lies in the meaning of false verbal communications.
Frontal Lobe Functions in Normal Aging: Metacognition, Autonomy, and Quality of Life
Published in Experimental Aging Research, 2019
Cristina Calso, Jérémy Besnard, Philippe Allain
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) determines emotional processing, including the acquisition and reversal of stimulus-reward associations. This ability can be categorized as behavioral and emotional self-regulatory (Stuss, 2008). Damage to the VMPFC (in Brodmann’s areas 32, 25, 24, 14, 13, 12, 11) results in difficulty in integrating the motivational, reward/risk, emotional and social aspects of behaviors, more than with the executive functions required to implement a behavior. The tasks assessing behavioral/emotional self-regulatory as well as decision-making (also supported by this frontal region) are, for example, deception, empathy and gambling tasks (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Lee, 1999). All of them involve an analysis of one’s own or others rewards and risks. Deception is intended here to the act of deceiving or the fact of being deceived.
Adult attachment and online dating deception: a theory modernized
Published in Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 2020
Marissa A. Mosley, Morgan Lancaster, M. L. Parker, Kelly Campbell
A core motivation for deception, or misrepresentation, in online dating is to present a more desirable self in order to attract prospective partners (Toma, Hancock, & Ellison, 2008). More specific motivations for deception include gaining attention or acceptance, safety, anonymity, personal gain, or avoiding conflict (Drouin, Miller, Wehle, & Hernandez, 2016). Gender comparisons indicate men more frequently misrepresent assets, relationship goals, interests, and personal attributes, whereas women often misrepresent physical characteristics in online dating (Hall, Park, Song, & Cody, 2010). Men are more likely to enhance their positive characteristics when a face-to-face meeting was less likely to take place (Guadagno, Okdie, & Kruse, 2012). Ellison and colleagues (2011) discovered that the acceptability of online deceptions by online daters may vary according to the malleability of features (e.g., hairstyle or facial hair), the magnitude of the misrepresentation (e.g., two-inch vs. ten inch height difference), or the subjectivity of the self-description (e.g., attractiveness). Participants also rationalized their personal misrepresentation through the concept of multiple selves referenced from a broad temporal spectrum (e.g., past and future self).
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