scholarly journals An initial accuracy focus reduces the effect of prior exposure on perceived accuracy of news headlines

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin P. Calvillo ◽  
Thomas J. Smelter
Keyword(s):  
Prior Exposure ◽  
Cognitive Reflection Test ◽  
Initial Exposure ◽  
Cognitive Reflection ◽  
Political Bias ◽  
Truth Effect ◽  
Exposure Experiment ◽  
False News ◽  
News Headlines ◽  
Illusory Truth Effect

Abstract The illusory truth effect occurs when the repetition of a claim increases its perceived truth. Previous studies have demonstrated the illusory truth effect with true and false news headlines. The present study examined the effects that different ratings made during initial exposure have on the illusory truth effect with news headlines. In two experiments, participants (total N = 575) rated a set of news headlines in one of two conditions. Some participants rated how interesting they were, and others rated how truthful they were. Participants later rated the perceived accuracy of a larger set of headlines that included previously rated and new headlines. In both experiments, prior exposure increased perceived accuracy for participants who made initial interest ratings, but not for participants who made initial truthfulness ratings. The increase in perceived accuracy that accompanies repeated exposure was attenuated when participants considered the accuracy of the headlines at initial exposure. Experiment 2 also found evidence for a political bias: participants rated politically concordant headlines as more accurate than politically discordant headlines. The magnitude of this bias was related to performance on a cognitive reflection test; more analytic participants demonstrated greater political bias. These results highlight challenges that fake news presents and suggest that initially encoding headlines’ perceived truth can serve to combat the illusion that a familiar headline is a truthful one.

scholarly journals Repetition Increases Perceived Truth Even for Known Falsehoods

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa K. Fazio
Keyword(s):  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
False Statement ◽  
Truth Effect ◽  
Different Types ◽  
News Headlines ◽  
Illusory Truth Effect

Repetition increases belief in false statements. This illusory truth effect occurs with many different types of statements (e.g., trivia facts, news headlines, advertisements), and even occurs when the false statement contradicts participants’ prior knowledge. However, existing studies of the effect of prior knowledge on the illusory truth effect share a common flaw; they measure participants’ knowledge after the experimental manipulation and thus conditionalize responses on posttreatment variables. In the current study, we measure prior knowledge prior to the experimental manipulation and thus provide a cleaner measurement of the causal effect of repetition on belief. We again find that prior knowledge does not protect against the illusory truth effect. Repeated false statements were given higher truth ratings than novel statements, even when they contradicted participants’ prior knowledge.

Repetition increases Perceived Truth even for Known Falsehoods

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Fazio
Keyword(s):  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
False Statement ◽  
Truth Effect ◽  
Different Types ◽  
News Headlines ◽  
Illusory Truth Effect

Repetition increases belief in false statements. This illusory truth effect occurs with many different types of statements (e.g., trivia facts, news headlines, advertisements), and even occurs when the false statement contradicts participants’ prior knowledge. However, existing studies of the effect of prior knowledge on the illusory truth effect share a common flaw; they measure participants’ knowledge after the experimental manipulation and thus conditionalize responses on posttreatment variables. In the current study, we measure prior knowledge prior to the experimental manipulation and thus provide a cleaner measurement of the causal effect of repetition on belief. We again find that prior knowledge does not protect against the illusory truth effect. Repeated false statements were given higher truth ratings than novel statements, even when they contradicted participants’ prior knowledge.

Cognitive Reflection Effects on Time Discounting

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Białek ◽  
Przemysław Sawicki
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Individual Difference ◽  
Delay Discounting ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Cognitive Reflection Test ◽  
Process Information ◽  
Time Discounting ◽  
Cognitive Reflection ◽  
The Way

Abstract. In this work, we investigated individual differences in cognitive reflection effects on delay discounting – a preference for smaller sooner over larger later payoff. People are claimed to prefer more these alternatives they considered first – so-called reference point – over the alternatives they considered later. Cognitive reflection affects the way individuals process information, with less reflective individuals relying predominantly on the first information they consider, thus, being more susceptible to reference points as compared to more reflective individuals. In Experiment 1, we confirmed that individuals who scored high on the Cognitive Reflection Test discount less strongly than less reflective individuals, but we also show that such individuals are less susceptible to imposed reference points. Experiment 2 replicated these findings additionally providing evidence that cognitive reflection predicts discounting strength and (in)dependency to reference points over and above individual difference in numeracy.

The cognitive reflection test and regional pathogen load

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kilian James Garvey ◽  
Laura Folse ◽  
Crystal Curry
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Reflection Test ◽  
Cognitive Reflection ◽  
Pathogen Load

The illusory truth effect: No repetition necessary

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Wright ◽  
Xiaoning Guo ◽  
Drew Brown ◽  
Chris Manolis ◽  
John Dinsmore ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Truth Effect ◽  
Illusory Truth Effect

EXPRESS: Fooling System 1 in the field of perception: Failure to Intuitively Detect Attribute Substitution in the Flushtration Count Illusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110693
Author(s):  
Cyril Thomas ◽  
Marion Botella ◽  
André Didierjean
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Cognitive Style ◽  
Cognitive Reflection Test ◽  
Substitution Error ◽  
Perceptual Illusion ◽  
Cognitive Reflection ◽  
Ball Problem ◽  
Perceptual Attribute ◽  
System 1 ◽  
The Relationship

To facilitate our interactions with the surroundings, the human brain sometimes reshapes the situations that it faces in order to simplify them. This phenomenon has been widely studied in the context of reasoning, especially through the attribute substitution error. It has however been given much less attention in the field of perception. Recent research on the bat-and-ball problem suggests that reasoners are able to intuitively detect attribute substitution errors. Using a perceptual illusion drawn from the field of magic, we investigate the extent to which a perceptual form of attribute substitution depends on executive resources and can be detected. We also investigate the relationship between susceptibility to attribute substitution error in the flushtration count illusion and in a French adaptation of the bat-and ball problem. Finally, we investigate the link between the intuitive cognitive style (assessed by the Cognitive Reflection Test) and the susceptibility to the flushtration count illusion. Our results suggest that participants do not detect perceptual attribute substitution error, that this phenomenon could be independent of the executive resources allocated to the task, and could rest on mechanisms distinct from those that produce errors in reasoning. We discuss differences between these two phenomena, and factors that may explain them.

scholarly journals Fake news, fast and slow: Deliberation reduces belief in false (but not true) news headlines

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bence Bago ◽  
David Gertler Rand ◽  
Gordon Pennycook
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Fake News ◽  
System 2 ◽  
False News ◽  
News Headlines ◽  
Classical Account

What role does deliberation play in susceptibility to political misinformation and “fake news”? The “Motivated System 2 Reasoning” account posits that deliberation causes people to fall for fake news because reasoning facilitates identity-protective cognition and is therefore used to rationalize content that is consistent with one’s political ideology. The classical account of reasoning instead posits that people ineffectively discern between true and false news headlines when they fail to deliberate (and instead rely on intuition). To distinguish between these competing accounts, we investigated the causal effect of reasoning on media truth discernment using a two-response paradigm. Participants (N= 1635 MTurkers) were presented with a series of headlines. For each, they were first asked to give an initial, intuitive response under time pressure and concurrent working memory load. They were then given an opportunity to re-think their response with no constraints, thereby permitting more deliberation. We also compared these responses to a (deliberative) one-response baseline condition where participants made a single choice with no constraints. Consistent with the classical account, we found that deliberation corrected intuitive mistakes: subjects believed false headlines (but not true headlines) more in initial responses than in either final responses or the unconstrained 1-response baseline. In contrast – and inconsistent with the Motivated System 2 Reasoning account – we found that political polarization was equivalent across responses. Our data suggest that, in the context of fake news, deliberation facilitates accurate belief formation and not partisan bias.

scholarly journals Beyond “fake news”: The role of analytic thinking in the detection of inaccuracy and partisan bias in news headlines

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M Ross ◽  
David Gertler Rand ◽  
Gordon Pennycook
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Analytic Thinking ◽  
Total N ◽  
Partisan Bias ◽  
News Content ◽  
Political Bias ◽  
Political Partisanship ◽  
News Headlines

Why is misleading partisan content believed and shared? An influential account posits that political partisanship pervasively biases reasoning, such that engaging in analytic thinking exacerbates motivated reasoning and, in turn, the acceptance of hyperpartisan content. Alternatively, it may be that susceptibility to hyperpartisan misinformation is explained by a lack of reasoning. Across two studies using different subject pools (total N = 1977), we had participants assess true, false, and hyperpartisan headlines taken from social media. We found no evidence that analytic thinking was associated with increased polarization for either judgments about the accuracy of the headlines or willingness to share the news content on social media. Instead, analytic thinking was broadly associated with an increased capacity to discern between true headlines and either false or hyperpartisan headlines. These results suggest that reasoning typically helps people differentiate between low and high quality news content, rather than facilitating political bias.

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