An initial accuracy focus prevents illusory truth

Author: Brashier, Nadia M.; Eliseev, Emmaline Drew; Marsh, Elizabeth J.

Description: News stories, advertising campaigns, and political propaganda often repeat misleading claims, increasing their persuasive power. Repeated statements feel easier to process, and thus truer, than new ones. Surprisingly, this illusory truth effect occurs even when claims contradict young adults’ stored knowledge (e.g., repeating “The fastest land animal is the leopard” makes it more believable). In four experiments, we tackled this problem by prompting people to behave like fact checkers. Focusing on accuracy at exposure (giving initial truth ratings) wiped out the illusion later

Subject headings: Illusory truth; Fact checking; Repeated statements; Propaganda; Advertising; Misinformation; Disinformation

Publication year: 2020

Journal or book title: Cognition

Volume: 194

Pages: 104054

Find the full text: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010027719302276

Find more like this one (cited by): https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=11954934456984485316&as_sdt=1000005&sciodt=0,16&hl=en

Serial number: 3627

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