The production and detection of deception in an interactive game

Abstract

This experiment tests how people produce and detect deception while playing a computerized version of the dice game, Meyer. Deception is an integral part of this game, and the participants played it as in real life, without constraints on whether or when to attempt to deceive their opponent, and whether or when to accuse them of deception. We stress that deception is a complex act that cannot be exclusively associated with telling a falsehood, and that it is facilitated by hierarchical decision-making and risk evaluation. In comparison with a non-competitive control condition, both claiming truthfully and claiming falsely were associated with activity in fronto-polar cortex (BA10). However, relative to true claims, false claims were associated with greater activity in the premotor and parietal cortices. We speculate that the activity in BA10 is associated with the development of high-level executive strategies involved in both types of claim, while the premotor and parietal activity is associated with the need to select which particular claim to make.