Enhancing banknote authentication by guiding attention to security features and manipulating prevalence expectancy

Frank van der Horst*, Joshua Snell, Jan Theeuwes

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalReview articleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

All banknotes have security features which are intended to help determine whether they are false or genuine. Typically, however, the general public has limited knowledge of where on a banknote these security features can be found. Here, we tested whether counterfeit detection can be improved with the help of salient elements, designed to guide bottom-up visuospatial attention. We also tested the influence of the participant’s a priori level of trust in the authenticity of the banknote. In an online study (N = 422), a demographically diverse panel of Dutch participants distinguished genuine banknotes from banknotes with one (left- or right-sided) counterfeited security feature. Either normal banknotes (without novel design elements) or banknotes that contained a salient element (a pink rectangular frame) were presented for 1 s. To manipulate the participant’s level of trust, trials were administered in three blocks, whereby at the start of each block, participants were instructed that either one third, one half, or two thirds of the upcoming banknotes were counterfeit (though the true ratio was always 1:1). We hypothesized (i) that in the presence of a salient element, counterfeits would be better detected when the location of the salient element aligned with the location of the counterfeited security feature—i.e. that it would act as an attentional cue; and (ii) that this effect would be stronger with lower trust. Our hypotheses were partly confirmed: counterfeit detection improved with ‘valid cues’ and decreasing trust, but the level of trust did not modulate the cueing effect. As the overall detection performance was rather poor, we replicated the study with a sample of university students (N = 66), this time presenting stimuli until response. While indeed observing better overall performance, all other patterns were replicated. Our results provide evidence that attention can be guided to enhance banknote authentication.

Original languageEnglish
Article number73
Pages (from-to)1-10
Number of pages10
JournalCognitive Research: Principles and Implications
Volume6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 13 Nov 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
JT and JS were supported by the European Research Council (ERC), respectively, Grants 833029 [LEARNATTEND] and H2020-MSCA-IF-2018 833223. During the present study FvdH was paid his salary by his employer De Nederlandsche Bank.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).

Funding

JT and JS were supported by the European Research Council (ERC), respectively, Grants 833029 [LEARNATTEND] and H2020-MSCA-IF-2018 833223. During the present study FvdH was paid his salary by his employer De Nederlandsche Bank.

FundersFunder number
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme833029, 833223
European Research CouncilH2020-MSCA-IF-2018 833223

    Keywords

    • Attention
    • Authentication
    • Banknotes
    • Counterfeits
    • Cueing
    • Decision-making
    • Gist
    • Vision

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