Repetition Increases Perceived Truth Even for Known Falsehoods

Large language models (LLMs) and the institutionalization of misinformation

Large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, flood the Internet with true and false information, crafted and delivered with techniques that psychological science suggests will encourage people to think that information is true. What's more, as people feed this misinformation back into the Internet, emerging LLMs will adopt it and feed it back in other models. Such a scenario means we could lose access to information that helps us tell what is real from unreal - to do 'reality monitoring.' If that happens, misinformation will be the new foundation we use to plan, to make decisions, and to vote. We will lose trust in our institutions and each other.

How Social Media Algorithms Shape Offline Civic Participation: A Framework of Social-Psychological Processes

Even though social media platforms have created opportunities for more efficient and convenient civic participation, they are unlikely to bring about social change if the online actions do not propagate to offline civic participation. This article begins by reviewing the meta-analytic evidence on the relation between social media use and offline civic participation. Following this discussion, we present a theoretical framework that incorporates the attitudinal, motivational, and relational processes that may mediate the effect of social media use on offline civic participation. The framework highlights how social media algorithms may shape attitudes on important societal issues, promote generalized action goals among habitual users, and build social capital. We further discuss factors that may strengthen or undermine each of these processes, suggest ways to design and implement algorithms that may promote offline civic participation, and propose questions for future research.

Are there 34,000 human emotions? Deconstructing patterns of scientific misinformation

BACKGROUND

Scientific misinformation is a much-discussed topic, and the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of reliability in science and research. However, limiting misinformation is complicated because of the growing number of communication channels, in which scientific and nonscientific content are often mixed.

METHODS

This case study combines the examination of references, online observation, and a content and frequency analysis to investigate the dissemination of scientific misinformation in the interplay of different genres and media.

RESULTS

Using the example of the claimed existence of 34,000 human emotions, this study demonstrates how questionable statements are spread in science, popular science, and pseudoscience, making it particularly challenging to track and correct them.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings highlight epistemic authority, trust, and injustice within and between scientific and nonscientific communities. The author argues that, in the digital age, researchers should defend and monitor scientific principles beyond academia.

Bias and constructive processes in a self-memory system

Martin Conway's influential theorising about the self-memory system (Conway, M. A., & Pleydell-Pearce, C. W. (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review, 107(2), 261-288) illuminated how the "working self" influences the construction of autobiographical memories. Moreover, his constructive view of self and memory is compatible with the occurrence of various kinds of errors and distortions in remembering. Here we consider one of the "seven sins" of memory (Schacter, D. L. (2021). The seven sins of memory updated edition: How the mind forgets and remembers. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) that we believe is most closely related to the operation of Conway's self-memory system: bias, which refers to the role of current knowledge, beliefs, and feelings in shaping and sometimes distorting memories for past experiences and attitudes. More specifically, we discuss recent research on three forms of bias - consistency, self-enhancing, and positivity biases - that illuminate their role in influencing how people remember the past and also imagine the future. We consider both theoretical and applied aspects of these biases and, consistent with Conway's perspective, argue that despite sometimes contributing to inaccuracies, bias also serves adaptive functions.

The illusory truth effect requires semantic coherence across repetitions

Repeated exposure to information increases its' perceived truth, and this illusory truth effect is often explained by two theoretical frameworks: the fluency account and the referential theory of truth. Whereas the fluency account suggests that prior activation of a single referent within a statement should increase its perceived truth, the referential theory makes no such predictions. The referential theory instead proposes that when a statement is processed, it activates the corresponding memory referents within that statement and strengthens the connection between these referents in the semantic memory network. Because repeated statements will have more coherent corresponding referents than new statements, they are perceived as relatively truer. Experiments 1 and 2 focused on testing the fluency account, with participants exposed to one or two of a statement's referents before evaluating that statement's truth. Experiments 3 and 4 focused on the referential theory by exposing participants to non-critical facts that linked together two of a critical statements' referents before evaluating the truth of the critical statements. We consistently observed a standard illusory truth effect, such that facts that repeated verbatim were rated as truer than new facts. However, perceived truth was not affected by prior exposure to the critical statement's topic (Experiment 1) or by prior exposure to non-critical facts related to the same topic(s) as the critical statement (Experiment 2). There was also no boost in perceived truth following prior exposure to non-critical facts that linked together two of the primary referents of the critical statement but did so in a semantically distinct manner from how those same referents were linked in the critical statement itself (Experiments 3 and 4). However, Experiment 4 demonstrated that perceived truth significantly increased if there was prior exposure to non-critical facts that linked two of the critical statement primary referents in a way that was semantically coherent with how those same referents were linked within the critical statement. Together, these results are consistent with the referential theory, and suggest that semantic consistency across repetitions plays a crucial role in leading to repetition-based illusory truth effects.

Repetition could increase the perceived truth of conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories can be encountered repeatedly, which raises the issue of the effect of their repeated exposure on beliefs. Earlier studies found that repetition increases truth judgments of factual statements, whether they are uncertain, highly implausible, or fake news, for instance. Would this "truth effect" be observed with conspiracy statements? If so, is the effect size smaller than the typical truth effect, and is it associated with individual differences such as cognitive style and conspiracy mentality? In the present preregistered study, we addressed these three issues. We asked participants to provide binary truth judgments to conspiracy and factual statements already displayed in an exposure phase (an interest judgment task) or that were new (displayed only in the truth judgment task). We measured participants' cognitive style with the three-item Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), and conspiracy mentality with the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (CMQ). Importantly, we found that repetition increased truth judgments of conspiracy theories, unmoderated by cognitive style and conspiracy mentality. Additionally, we found that the truth effect was smaller with conspiracy theories than with uncertain factual statements, and suggest explanations for this difference. The results suggest that repetition may be a simple way to increase belief in conspiracy theories. Whether repetition increases conspiracy beliefs in natural settings and how it contributes to conspiracism compared to other factors are important questions for future research.

Repeated simulation increases belief in the future occurrence of uncertain events

The feeling that an imagined event will or will not occur in the future - referred to as belief in future occurrence - plays a key role in guiding our decisions and actions. Recent research suggests that this belief may increase with repeated simulation of future events, but the boundary conditions for this effect remain unclear. Considering the key role of autobiographical knowledge in shaping belief in occurrence, we suggest that the effect of repeated simulation only occurs when prior autobiographical knowledge does not clearly support or contradict the occurrence of the imagined event. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the repetition effect for events that were either plausible or implausible due to their coherence or incoherence with autobiographical knowledge (Experiment 1), and for events that initially appeared uncertain because they were not clearly supported or contradicted by autobiographical knowledge (Experiment 2). We found that all types of events became more detailed and took less time to construct after repeated simulation, but belief in their future occurrence increased only for uncertain events; repetition did not influence belief for events already believed or considered implausible. These findings show that the effect of repeated simulation on belief in future occurrence depends on the consistency of imagined events with autobiographical knowledge.

What the Neuroscience and Psychology of Magic Reveal about Misinformation

When we believe misinformation, we have succumbed to an illusion: our perception or interpretation of the world does not match reality. We often trust misinformation for reasons that are unrelated to an objective, critical interpretation of the available data: Key facts go unnoticed or unreported. Overwhelming information prevents the formulation of alternative explanations. Statements become more believable every time they are repeated. Events are reframed or given "spin" to mislead audiences. In magic shows, illusionists apply similar techniques to convince spectators that false and even seemingly impossible events have happened. Yet, many magicians are "honest liars," asking audiences to suspend their disbelief only during the performance, for the sole purpose of entertainment. Magic misdirection has been studied in the lab for over a century. Psychological research has sought to understand magic from a scientific perspective and to apply the tools of magic to the understanding of cognitive and perceptual processes. More recently, neuroscientific investigations have also explored the relationship between magic illusions and their underlying brain mechanisms. We propose that the insights gained from such studies can be applied to understanding the prevalence and success of misinformation. Here, we review some of the common factors in how people experience magic during a performance and are subject to misinformation in their daily lives. Considering these factors will be important in reducing misinformation and encouraging critical thinking in society.

Measuring the effects of misinformation exposure and beliefs on behavioural intentions: a COVID-19 vaccination study

Misinformation has been a pressing issue since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, threatening our ability to effectively act on the crisis. Nevertheless, little is known about the actual effects of fake news on behavioural intentions. Does exposure to or belief in misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines affect people's intentions to receive such a vaccine? This paper attempts to address this question via three preregistered experiments (N = 3463). In Study 1, participants (n = 1269) were exposed to fabricated pro- or anti-vaccine information or to neutral true information, and then asked about their intentions to get vaccinated. In Study 2, participants (n = 646) were exposed to true pro- and anti-vaccine information, while Study 3 (n = 1548) experimentally manipulated beliefs in novel misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines by increasing exposure to the information. The results of these three studies showed that exposure to false information about the vaccines had little effect on participants' intentions to get vaccinated, even when multiple exposures led them to believe the headlines to be more accurate. An exploratory meta-analysis of studies 1 and 3, with a combined sample size of 2683, showed that exposure to false information both supporting and opposing COVID-19 vaccines actually increased vaccination intentions, though the effect size was very small. We conclude by cautioning researchers against equating exposure to misinformation or perceived accuracy of false news with actual behaviours.

Recollection of "true" feedback is better than "false" feedback independently of a priori beliefs: an investigation from the perspective of dual-recollection theory

The processes underlying memory for truth and falsity have been explored and discussed in experimental psychology for over thirty years now. Psychologists have often referred to the Spinozan and Cartesian models about truth-value information "tagging" but, so far, experimental results have been inconsistent. This paper investigates memory for truth and falsity from the new perspective of the dual-recollection theory. We conducted two experiments using the conjoint recognition paradigm and multinomial modelling as a measurement model. Both our experiments confirmed a satisfactory goodness of fit of the data to the dual-recollection multinomial model. In Experiment 1, the context recollection parameter representing memory for feedback information was significantly higher for true than for false statements. This finding was replicated in the second experiment, which controlled the potential impact of participants' previous knowledge on memory performance. Experiment 2 indicated that the target recollection parameter representing memory for the sentence itself was significantly higher for true than for false sentences solely when participants believed this sentence to be true but not when they perceived it as false before the memory experiment. Our research was the first attempt to look at memory for truth and falsity from the perspective of the recently developed dual-recollection theory.

The effects of repeating false and misleading information on belief

False and misleading information is readily accessible in people's environments, oftentimes reaching people repeatedly. This repeated exposure can significantly affect people's beliefs about the world, as has been noted by scholars in political science, communication, and cognitive, developmental, and social psychology. In particular, repetition increases belief in false information, even when the misinformation contradicts prior knowledge. We review work across these disciplines, identifying factors that may heighten, diminish, or have no impact on these adverse effects of repetition on belief. Specifically, we organize our discussion around variations in what information is repeated, to whom the information is repeated, how people interact with this repetition, and how people's beliefs are measured. A key cross-disciplinary theme is that the most influential factor is how carefully or critically people process the false information. However, several open questions remain when comparing findings across different fields and approaches. We conclude by noting a need for more interdisciplinary work to help resolve these questions, as well as a need for more work in naturalistic settings so that we can better understand and combat the effects of repeated circulation of false and misleading information in society. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory Psychology > Reasoning and Decision Making.

Truth feels easy: Knowing information is true enhances experienced processing fluency

Information is more likely believed to be true when it feels easy rather than difficult to process. An ecological learning explanation for this fluency-truth effect implicitly or explicitly presumes that truth and fluency are positively associated. Specifically, true information may be easier to process than false information and individuals may reverse this link in their truth judgments. The current research investigates the important but so far untested precondition of the learning explanation for the fluency-truth effect. In particular, five experiments (total N = 712) test whether participants experience information known to be true as easier to process than information known to be false. Participants in Experiment 1a judged true statements easier to read than false statements. Experiment 1b was a preregistered direct replication with a large sample and again found increased legibility for true statements-importantly, however, this was not the case for statements for which the truth status was unknown. Experiment 1b thereby shows that it is not the actual truth or falsehood of information but the believed truth or falsehood that is associated with processing fluency. In Experiment 2, true calculations were rated as easier to read than false calculations. Participants in Experiment 3 judged it easier to listen to calculations generally known to be true than to calculations generally known to be false. Experiment 4 shows an effect of truth on processing fluency independent of statement familiarity. Discussion centers on the current explanation for the fluency-truth effect and the validity of processing fluency as a cue in truth judgments.

The Effect of Repetition on Truth Judgments Across Development

According to numerous research studies, when adults hear a statement twice, they are more likely to think it is true compared with when they have heard it only once. Multiple theoretical explanations exist for this illusory-truth effect. However, none of the current theories fully explains how or why people begin to use repetition as a cue for truth. In this preregistered study, we investigated those developmental origins in twenty-four 5-year-olds, twenty-four 10-year-olds, and 32 adults. If the link between repetition and truth is learned implicitly, then even 5-year-olds should show the effect. Alternatively, realizing this connection may require metacognition and intentional reflection, skills acquired later in development. Repetition increased truth judgments for all three age groups, and prior knowledge did not protect participants from the effects of repetition. These results suggest that the illusory-truth effect is a universal effect learned at a young age.