Sex, lies and fMRI--gender differences in neural basis of deception

Artur Marchewka, Katarzyna Jednorog, Marcel Falkiewicz, Wojciech Szeszkowski, Anna Grabowska, Iwona Szatkowska, Artur Marchewka, Katarzyna Jednorog, Marcel Falkiewicz, Wojciech Szeszkowski, Anna Grabowska, Iwona Szatkowska

Abstract

Deception has always been a part of human communication as it helps to promote self-presentation. Although both men and women are equally prone to try to manage their appearance, their strategies, motivation and eagerness may be different. Here, we asked if lying could be influenced by gender on both the behavioral and neural levels. To test whether the hypothesized gender differences in brain activity related to deceptive responses were caused by differential socialization in men and women, we administered the Gender Identity Inventory probing the participants' subjective social sex role. In an fMRI session, participants were instructed either to lie or to tell the truth while answering a questionnaire focusing on general and personal information. Only for personal information, we found differences in neural responses during instructed deception in men and women. The women vs. men direct contrast revealed no significant differences in areas of activation, but men showed higher BOLD signal compared to women in the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG). Moreover, this effect remained unchanged when self-reported psychological gender was controlled for. Thus, our study showed that gender differences in the neural processes engaged during falsifying personal information might be independent from socialization.

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1. Behavioral results. Mean accuracy rates…
Figure 1. Behavioral results. Mean accuracy rates (A) and reaction times (B) of men and women for deceptive and truthful responses.
Error bars represent standard error of the mean. No between-gender effect reached significance.
Figure 2. Differential reaction times (RT) of…
Figure 2. Differential reaction times (RT) of men and women for general and personal information.
Error bars represent standard error of the mean. In men, differential RT for personal information were significantly longer than for general information, whereas in women no such differences were observed.
Figure 3. Brain regions showing increased activity…
Figure 3. Brain regions showing increased activity during lying compared to truth-telling.
The activations are superimposed on a Colin27 template image in the MNI space. The colored bar represents t-values; L – left side; R- right side.
Figure 4. Brain activation map contrasting personal…
Figure 4. Brain activation map contrasting personal “lie” versus general “lie”.
The activations are superimposed on a Colin27 template image in the MNI space. The colored bar represents t-values; L – left side; R- right side.
Figure 5. Differences between lying and truth-telling…
Figure 5. Differences between lying and truth-telling in men and women in the left middle frontal gyrus area.
The bar chart represents the mean contrast value of the cluster. The activation is superimposed on a Colin27 template image in the MNI space. The colored bar represents t-values; L – left side; R- right side.
Figure 6. Experimental design of the study.
Figure 6. Experimental design of the study.
The instruction was presented above the fixation point and, after 2 seconds, was followed by a question that appeared below the fixation point for 3 seconds. The inter-stimulus interval was varied from 8–12 s (for details see text).

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