A Novel Paradigm for Studying Consent Reframing: Integrating the Autobiographical Implicit Association Test (aIAT) and Eye-Tracking to Detect the Original Consent Memory

Assessing sexual consent in forensic contexts is challenging, since a discrepancy between initial consent and a subsequent belief that it was denied may emerge. Cognitive dissonance may foster post-event reframing without necessarily erasing the memory of the prior decision. Here, the Consent-Justification Paradigm aimed to elicit post-event reframing was developed. Participants were requested to complete an interview and to provide consent for confidential use; then they were falsely informed of a data breach involving their confidential information, and they were given the option to confirm/revoke their original consent. Control participants received no information. They were also requested to complete the Autobiographical Implicit Association Test (aIAT) with eye-tracking, aiming to detect the original consent. We did not find differences between participants revoking vs. confirming consent at the aIAT, suggesting that it was able to detect the original consent. The aIAT showed 96% classification accuracy, while the eye tracking alone was 88% (100% when the two indices were combined). Therefore, our study introduces a novel paradigm for investigating cognitive dissonance in the retrospective re-labeling of consensual acts. Nevertheless, the findings are from simulated consent in a laboratory setting and cannot be transferred directly to real-life sexual-consent forensic cases.