How to tell if someone is hiding something from you? An overview of the scientific basis of deception and concealed information detection

 I will start with a short introduction on the problems and shortcomings of traditional deception detection tools and why those still prevail in many recent approaches (e.g., in AI-based deception detection). I want to argue for the importance of more fundamental deception research and give some examples for insights gained therefrom. In the second part of the talk, I will introduce the Concealed Information Test (CIT), a promising paradigm for research and applied contexts to investigate whether someone actually recognizes information that they do not want to reveal. The CIT is based on solid scientific theory and produces large effects sizes in laboratory studies with a number of different measures (e.g., behavioral, psychophysiological, and neural measures). I will highlight some challenges a forensic application of the CIT still faces and how scientific research could assist in overcoming those.