A Filtering Response Time Concealed Information Test for Searching for Relevant Concealed Items

The response time concealed information test can reveal whether a person recognizes a relevant concealed item among others based on slower responses. This method also has a hitherto scarcely researched potential for searching for an unknown probe. We introduce a design for efficiently searching through any number of items. In Study 1 (N = 260), we tested a conventional test design with 10 items. Using these data, we developed a new design with a filtering mechanism that dynamically removes items live during the task as soon as proven unlikely to be the relevant item. The filtering design, assessed in Study 2 (N = 260), took substantially less time (∼17 vs. ∼7 min), while being at least similarly efficient in correctly identifying the probe (30.0% vs. 43.1%). Our filtering design offers a time-efficient, scalable, adaptive tool for identifying unknown concealed information among multiple suspected probes, with broad real-world application.