A meta-analysis of the P3 amplitude in tasks requiring deception in legal and social contexts

In deception tasks the parietal P3 amplitude of the event-related potential indicates either recognition of salient stimuli (larger P3 following salient information) or mental effort (smaller P3 following demanding information). This meta-analysis (k = 77) investigated population effect sizes (δ) for conceptual and methodological a-priori moderators (study design, pre-task scenario, context of deception tasks, and P3 quantification). Within-subject designs show evidence of the underlying cognitive processes, between-subject designs allow for comparisons of cognitive processes in culprits vs. innocents. Committed vs. imagined mock crime scenarios yield larger δ. Deception tasks with a legal context result in almost twice as large δ than deception tasks with social-evaluative and social-biographical contexts. Peak-to-peak P3 quantification resulted in larger δ than other quantifications. Counter-measure techniques in 3-stimulus protocols reduce the discriminability of concealed vs. truthful P3 amplitudes. Depending on stimulus knowledge, deception tasks provide evidence for the salience hypothesis and the mental effort hypothesis, respectively.