scholarly journals How Repetition Affects What Kids and Adults Believe

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raunak M. Pillai ◽  
Carrie L. Sherry ◽  
Lisa K. Fazio

How do you know that something is true? Is it because you learned it in school? Is it because you heard it before? Our brains can remember a lot of information, but we do not always use this information when deciding what is true. Sometimes we use shortcuts like, “Have I heard this before?” rather than thinking about what we know. These shortcuts can lead us to make mistakes—like thinking that a false statement is true just because you have heard it many times. Researchers call this the illusory truth effect. People are more likely to believe information they have heard multiple times. This happens even when people should know that what they are hearing is wrong! They already have the correct information stored in memory, but repetition makes them think that false information is true. In this article, we discuss why this happens, and how this might affect kids like you!

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa K. Fazio

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.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Fazio

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.


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

Author(s):  
Aumyo Hassan ◽  
Sarah J. Barber

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.”


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-106
Author(s):  
Subiyantana Subiyantana ◽  
Nynda Fatmawati Octarina

Abstrak  Seorang notaris terkadang tanpa diketahuinya ada keterangan palsu yang disampaikan para pihak, yang kemudian menjadi dasar pembuatan akta autentik. Perlu dikaji dan dianalisis pertanggungjawaban pidana notaris atas akta yang dibuat berdasarkan keterangan palsu serta mengkaji dan menganalisis akibat hukum yang timbul terhadap akta notaris yang didasarkan pada keterangan palsu.Notaris dapat dimintai pertanggungjawaban pidana terhadap akta yang dibuat olehnya berdasarkan apa yang dilihat, disaksikan, dan dialaminya dalam suatu perbuatan hukum jika secara sengaja atau lalai, notaris membuat akta palsu sehingga merugikan pihak lain. Pertanggungjawaban secara pidana, seorang notaris harus memenuhi unsur-unsur: melakukan tindak pidana; memiliki kemampuan untuk bertanggung jawab; dengan kesengajaan atau kealpaan; dan tidak ada alasan pemaaf. Terhadap akta notaris yang dibuat berdasarkan keterangan palsu tidak dengan sendirinya mengakibatkan akta tersebut batal demi hukum. Para pihak yang dirugikan dengan keberadaan akta seperti itu harus mengajukan gugatan perdata ke pengadilan untuk membatalkan akta tersebut. Pertanggungjawaban pidana notaris perlu diatur dalam UUJN yang akan datang.  Kata Kunci:Notaris, Pidana, Perbuatan Melawan Hukum   Abstract  A notary sometimes without knowing there is a false statement submitted by the parties, which then becomes the basis for making an authentic deed. It is necessary to study and analyze the criminal liability of notaries for deeds made based on false information as well as to study and analyze the legal consequences arising from notary deeds based on false information. The notary can be held liable for criminal responsibility for the deed made by him based on what he has seen, witnessed and experienced in a legal act if intentionally or negligently, the notary makes a fake deed so that it harms other parties. For criminal responsibility, a notary must fulfill the following elements: committing a criminal act; have the ability to be responsible; intentionally or negligently; and there are no excuses. A notarial deed based on false information does not automatically result in the deed being null and void. The parties who are aggrieved by the existence of such a deed must file a civil suit to the court to cancel the deed. The criminal liability of notaries needs to be regulated in the upcoming UUJN.  Keywords : Notary, Criminal, Act against the law    


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

Journalism ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 146488491987800
Author(s):  
Graham Majin

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.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 739-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei-Chun Wang ◽  
Nadia M. Brashier ◽  
Erik A. Wing ◽  
Elizabeth J. Marsh ◽  
Roberto Cabeza

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.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas De keersmaecker ◽  
David Alan Dunning ◽  
Gordon Pennycook ◽  
David Gertler Rand ◽  
Carmen Sanchez ◽  
...  

People are more inclined to believe that information is true if they have encountered it before. Little is known about whether this illusory truth effect is influenced by individual differences in cognition. In seven studies (combined N = 2196), using both trivia statements (Studies 1-6) and partisan news headlines (Study 7), we investigate moderation by three factors that have been shown to play a critical role in epistemic processes: cognitive ability (Study 1, 2, 5), need for cognitive closure (Study 1), and cognitive style, that is, reliance on intuitive versus analytic thinking (Study 1, 3-7). All studies showed a significant illusory truth effect, but there was no evidence for moderation by any of the cognitive measures across studies. These results indicate that the illusory truth effect is robust to individual differences in cognitive ability, need for cognitive closure, and cognitive style.


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