Superiority of pictorial versus verbal presentation and initial exposure in the P300-based, complex trial protocol for concealed memory detection.

Two mock guilty groups had either pictorial or verbal initial exposure to crime items (probes) on which they were told they would later be tested. Then each subject was tested in two sessions on two successive days with both verbal and pictorial presentation, one test modality per session/day. The three dependent variables analyzed were three different estimates of the same basic measurement: the difference between P300s evoked by key (probe) and irrelevant stimuli. All three indexes were significantly increased more by both initial pictorial exposure, as well as by pictorial presentation modality, than by verbal exposure and presentation. We saw no main effect of exposure-presentation modality congruence, as congruence interacted with exposure: The largest probe-irrelevant differences were evoked by congruent pictorial exposure and presentation modality, and the smallest by congruent verbal exposure and presentation modality.