Deception and the misinformation effect: An event-related potential study

Research in the field of deception often tests participants' ability to lie about information with which they are familiar and have a strong recall of base truth. The current study examined the impact of uncertainty in memory on the ability to deceive, as may happen in real-world eye-witness scenarios. A visual misinformation paradigm was combined with event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the impact of deception and misinformation on ERP components previously associated with deception and memory processes. Deception was associated with strong parietal P3b suppression and a large frontal negativity (N400). Misinformation was also associated with parietal P3b suppression and had effects on a late positive component (LPC) in occipital regions. The results indicate that while deception and memory uncertainty may have combined effects, they still both independently influence information processing. Published by Elsevier B.V.