scholarly journals Illusory Truth Occurs Even with Incentives for Accuracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia M Brashier ◽  
David Gertler Rand
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Incentives ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Truth Effect ◽  
Illusory Truth Effect

Fake news sites, politicians, and advertisers often make false claims believable by repeating them. Repeated statements feel easier to process, and thus truer, than new ones. In two large experiments (N = 1188), we investigated whether monetary incentives for accuracy reduce this 'illusory truth effect.' Repetition misled people regardless of whether they could earn money for correct answers. The illusion occurred even when participants received item-by-item reminders about possible rewards. Our findings suggest that motivation is not always enough to disengage people from using heuristics to evaluate truth, with implications for a “post-truth world.”

scholarly journals The effects of repetition frequency on the illusory truth effect

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aumyo Hassan ◽  
Sarah J. Barber
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Repetition Frequency ◽  
Processing Fluency ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
The Real ◽  
Truth Effect ◽  
New Information ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Illusory Truth Effect

AbstractRepeated information is often perceived as more truthful than new information. This finding is known as the illusory truth effect, and it is typically thought to occur because repetition increases processing fluency. Because fluency and truth are frequently correlated in the real world, people learn to use processing fluency as a marker for truthfulness. Although the illusory truth effect is a robust phenomenon, almost all studies examining it have used three or fewer repetitions. To address this limitation, we conducted two experiments using a larger number of repetitions. In Experiment 1, we showed participants trivia statements up to 9 times and in Experiment 2 statements were shown up to 27 times. Later, participants rated the truthfulness of the previously seen statements and of new statements. In both experiments, we found that perceived truthfulness increased as the number of repetitions increased. However, these truth rating increases were logarithmic in shape. The largest increase in perceived truth came from encountering a statement for the second time, and beyond this were incrementally smaller increases in perceived truth for each additional repetition. These findings add to our theoretical understanding of the illusory truth effect and have applications for advertising, politics, and the propagation of “fake news.”

scholarly journals PENGARUH INDUKSI GAYA KOGNITIF REFLEKTIF TERHADAP PERSEPSI AKURASI BERITA PALSU (FAKE NEWS) PADA SITUASI EFEK KEBENARAN SEMU (ILLUSORY TRUTH EFFECT)

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 193
Author(s):  
Muh. Zulfajri Shadiq Taswin ◽  
Whisnu Yudiana
Keyword(s):  
Random Sampling ◽  
Simple Random Sampling ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Visual Priming ◽  
Truth Effect ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Illusory Truth Effect

Penyebaran informasi yang begitu cepat ternyata kurang dapat diimbangi dengan jaminan bahwa informasi tersebut benar adanya. Fenomena beredarnya berita di dunia maya yang kontennya tidak sesuai dengan kenyataan, dikenal dengan istilah berita palsu (fake news). Semakin sering seseorang mendengar sebuah informasi, terlepas dari apakah informasi tersebut benar atau tidak, semakin mungkin pula ia mempercayai bahwa informasi tersebut benar. Fenomena tersebut dinamakan dengan efek kebenaran semu (illusory truth effect). Kecenderungan menggunakan salah satu dari dua proses kognitif yang ada, yakni proses tipe 1 (intuitif) atau tipe 2 (reflektif), ketika menerima berita palsu dinamakan gaya kognitif. Orang dengan gaya kognitif reflektif cenderung lebih mungkin untuk mampu membedakan berita palsu dari berita asli, dibandingkan orang dengan gaya kognitif intuitif. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui apakah dalam situasi efek kebenaran semu terjadi, seseorang yang diinduksikan gaya kognitif reflektif lebih mampu menilai berita palsu sebagai palsu dibandingkan orang yang tidak terinduksi. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan eksperimen dengan metode between participant post-test only design yang dilakukan pada 215 mahasiswa Fakultas Psikologi Universitas Padjadjaran menggunakan simple random sampling. Induksi gaya kognitif reflektif diberikan pada kelompok eksperimen menggunakan metode Visual Priming gambar patung The Thinker. Data hasil penelitian dianalisis menggunakan uji statistik Mann-Whitney U dua sampel bebas. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa tidak terdapat pengaruh induksi gaya kognitif reflektif terhadap persepsi akurasi berita palsu dalam situasi adanya efek kebenaran semu. Penjelasan dominan yang menjadi dugaan peneliti ialah karena induksi menggunakan visual priming gambar patung The Thinker tidak dapat direplikasi pada penelitian ini.

scholarly journals Monetary incentives do not reduce the repetition-induced truth effect

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Speckmann ◽  
Christian Unkelbach
Keyword(s):  
Response Times ◽  
Repetition Effect ◽  
Monetary Incentives ◽  
Fake News ◽  
False Information ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Truth Effect

AbstractPeople rate and judge repeated information more true than novel information. This truth-by-repetition effect is of relevance for explaining belief in fake news, conspiracy theories, or misinformation effects. To ascertain whether increased motivation could reduce this effect, we tested the influence of monetary incentives on participants’ truth judgments. We used a standard truth paradigm, consisting of a presentation and judgment phase with factually true and false information, and incentivized every truth judgment. Monetary incentives may influence truth judgments in two ways. First, participants may rely more on relevant knowledge, leading to better discrimination between true and false statements. Second, participants may rely less on repetition, leading to a lower bias to respond “true.” We tested these predictions in a preregistered and high-powered experiment. However, incentives did not influence the percentage of “true” judgments or correct responses in general, despite participants’ longer response times in the incentivized conditions and evidence for knowledge about the statements. Our findings show that even monetary consequences do not protect against the truth-by-repetition effect, further substantiating its robustness and relevance and highlighting its potential hazardous effects when used in purposeful misinformation.

Distinguishing the binary of news – fake and real: The illusory truth effect

2020 ◽  
Vol 00 (00) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Yanfang Wu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Sem Analysis ◽  
News Story ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Online Experiment ◽  
News Stories ◽  
News Sources ◽  
Truth Effect ◽  
News Source ◽  
Illusory Truth Effect

This study seeks to uncover the effects of source and repetition on the illusory truth effect and the dissemination of fake news on social media with an online experiment. This study found that in a personalized source system where trustworthy traditional news sources and personal contacts converged on social media, repetition has a big influence on the trustworthiness of news source and balance of news story. Although most people intend to share real news stories with balance, the illusory truth effect causes mis-judgement, which makes fake news more likely to go viral than real news. The multi-group SEM analysis of the two groups – without source and with source – showed that readers in the no source group rated the effect of repetition on news evaluation as more significant than the with source group. The findings suggest that the effect of source has diminished in the evaluation of news quality. However, sharers on social media are becoming more influential.

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

scholarly journals Fake Claims of Fake News: Political Misinformation, Warnings, and the Tainted Truth Effect

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Freeze ◽  
Mary Baumgartner ◽  
Peter Bruno ◽  
Jacob R. Gunderson ◽  
Joshua Olin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fake News ◽  
Truth Effect

scholarly journals The Implied Truth Effect: Attaching Warnings to a Subset of Fake News Headlines Increases Perceived Accuracy of Headlines Without Warnings

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (11) ◽  
pp. 4944-4957 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Pennycook ◽  
Adam Bear ◽  
Evan T. Collins ◽  
David G. Rand
Keyword(s):  
Formal Model ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Potential Consequence ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Truth Effect ◽  
News Headlines ◽  
Potential Challenge ◽  
Modest Reduction

What can be done to combat political misinformation? One prominent intervention involves attaching warnings to headlines of news stories that have been disputed by third-party fact-checkers. Here we demonstrate a hitherto unappreciated potential consequence of such a warning: an implied truth effect, whereby false headlines that fail to get tagged are considered validated and thus are seen as more accurate. With a formal model, we demonstrate that Bayesian belief updating can lead to such an implied truth effect. In Study 1 (n = 5,271 MTurkers), we find that although warnings do lead to a modest reduction in perceived accuracy of false headlines relative to a control condition (particularly for politically concordant headlines), we also observed the hypothesized implied truth effect: the presence of warnings caused untagged headlines to be seen as more accurate than in the control. In Study 2 (n = 1,568 MTurkers), we find the same effects in the context of decisions about which headlines to consider sharing on social media. We also find that attaching verifications to some true headlines—which removes the ambiguity about whether untagged headlines have not been checked or have been verified—eliminates, and in fact slightly reverses, the implied truth effect. Together these results contest theories of motivated reasoning while identifying a potential challenge for the policy of using warning tags to fight misinformation—a challenge that is particularly concerning given that it is much easier to produce misinformation than it is to debunk it. This paper was accepted by Elke Weber, judgment and decision making.

Repetition is good? An Internet trial on the illusory truth effect in schizophrenia and nonclinical participants

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 1058-1063 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen Moritz ◽  
Ulf Köther ◽  
Todd S. Woodward ◽  
Ruth Veckenstedt ◽  
Alice Dechêne ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Truth Effect ◽  
Illusory Truth Effect

scholarly journals A catastrophic media failure? Russiagate, Trump and the illusion of truth: The dangers of innuendo and narrative repetition

Journalism ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 146488491987800
Author(s):  
Graham Majin
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Media Effects ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Truth Effect ◽  
Narrative Repetition ◽  
Illusory Truth Effect

The journalistic coverage of Russiagate, between 2017 and March 2019, has been described as ‘a catastrophic media failure’. Drawing on political and social psychology, this article seeks to enrich, and refresh, the familiar journalistic concepts of agenda-setting, framing and priming by combining them under the heading of the ‘news narrative’. Using this interdisciplinary approach to media effects theory, Russiagate is considered in terms of the Illusory Truth Effect and the Innuendo Effect. These effects hypothesise that the more audiences are exposed to information, the more likely they are to believe it – even when they are told that the information is unreliable. As a specific example, we focus on the stance taken by BBC News – which has an obligation to journalistic impartiality. We ask what implications arise from this analysis with regard to audience trust.

scholarly journals On Known Unknowns: Fluency and the Neural Mechanisms of Illusory Truth

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 739-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei-Chun Wang ◽  
Nadia M. Brashier ◽  
Erik A. Wing ◽  
Elizabeth J. Marsh ◽  
Roberto Cabeza
Keyword(s):  
Brain Region ◽  
Perirhinal Cortex ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Truth Effect ◽  
Processing Information ◽  
Behavioral Evidence ◽  
Known Unknowns ◽  
Illusory Truth Effect

The “illusory truth” effect refers to the phenomenon whereby repetition of a statement increases its likelihood of being judged true. This phenomenon has important implications for how we come to believe oft-repeated information that may be misleading or unknown. Behavioral evidence indicates that fluency, the subjective ease experienced while processing information, underlies this effect. This suggests that illusory truth should be mediated by brain regions previously linked to fluency, such as the perirhinal cortex (PRC). To investigate this possibility, we scanned participants with fMRI while they rated the truth of unknown statements, half of which were presented earlier (i.e., repeated). The only brain region that showed an interaction between repetition and ratings of perceived truth was PRC, where activity increased with truth ratings for repeated, but not for new, statements. This finding supports the hypothesis that illusory truth is mediated by a fluency mechanism and further strengthens the link between PRC and fluency.

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