Debey Evelyne, Liefooghe Baptist, De Houwer Jan, Verschuere Bruno
Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium,
Psychol Res. 2015 May;79(3):478-88. doi: 10.1007/s00426-014-0582-4. Epub 2014 Jun 13.
A cornerstone of the task switching literature is the finding that task performance is typically slower and more error-prone when the task switches than when it repeats. So far, deception research has largely ignored that such cognitive switch costs should also emerge when switching between truth telling and lying, and may affect the cognitive cost of lying as reflected in higher prefrontal brain activity and slower and less accurate responding compared to truth telling. To get a grasp on the relative size of the switch costs associated with lying and truth telling, the current study had participants perform a reaction time-based deception task, in which they alternated between lying and telling the truth to yes/no questions that were related to activities performed in the lab (Experiment 1) or neutral autobiographical facts (Experiment 2). In both experiments, the error and reaction time switch costs were found to be equally large for switching from truth telling to lying and from lying to truth telling. This symmetry in switch costs can be explained from the hypothesis that lying requires a first step of truth telling, and demonstrates that task switching does not contribute to the cognitive cost of lying when the repetition/switch ratio is balanced. Theoretical and methodological implications are considered.
与任务重复时相比，任务转换时的任务表现通常更慢且更容易出错。到目前为止，欺骗研究在很大程度上忽略了这样一个事实，即在说真话和说谎之间进行转换时，这种认知转换成本也应该会出现，并且可能会影响说谎的认知成本，这表现为与说真话相比，前额叶大脑活动增加、反应更慢且准确性更低。为了了解与说谎和说真话相关的转换成本的相对大小，当前的研究让参与者执行一项基于反应时间的欺骗任务，在该任务中，他们在回答与实验室中进行的活动相关的是/否问题（实验1）或中性自传事实（实验2）时，在说谎和说真话之间交替。在这两个实验中，从说真话转换为说谎以及从说谎转换为说真话时，错误和反应时间转换成本被发现是同样大的。转换成本的这种对称性可以从说谎需要第一步说真话的假设来解释，并且表明当重复/转换比率平衡时，任务转换不会增加说谎的认知成本。同时也考虑了理论和方法学上的意义。
