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Initial judgment task and delay of the final validity-rating task moderate the truth effect
Abstract
Repeatedly seen or heard statements are typically judged to be more valid than statements one has never encountered before. This phenomenon has been referred to as the truth effect. We conducted two experiments to assess the plasticity of the truth effect under different contextual conditions. Surprisingly, we did not find a truth effect in the typical judgment design when using a ten minutes interval between statement repetitions. However, we replicated the truth effect when changing the judgment task at initial statement exposure or when using an interval of one week rather than ten minutes. Because none of the current truth effect theories can fully account for these context effects, we conclude that the cognitive processes underlying truth judgments are more complex than has hitherto been assumed. To close the theoretical gap, we propose a revised fluency attribution hypothesis as a possible explanation of our findings.
... It has been reported for different types of statements: trivia (e.g., Hasher et al., 1977), opinions (e.g., Arkes et al., 1991), or advertisements (e. g., Hawkins & Hoch, 1992). It works for both written (e.g., Arkes et al., 1991;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014) and auditory (e.g., Garcia-Marques et al., 2015;Hasher et al., 1977) presentations of the statements. Dechêne et al. (2010) conducted a meta-analysis of studies that examined the repetition-induced truth effect and found that it is a robust phenomenon with medium effect sizes. ...
... We did not run the whole experiment at once, which was mainly due to practical reasons (rating the 204 statements and the 51 affective pictures in Session 2 already took about one hour). Also, the repetition-induced truth effect cannot always be replicated if the exposure phase and the judgment phase are administered on the same day because participants might remember the statements and their judgments (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014), and we wanted fluency and picture-induced affective mechanisms to be isolated from other memory influences such as explicit recognition. The positivity-familiarity link may be weakened when stimuli are explicitly remembered (Monin, 2003, Experiment 5). ...
... The failure to modulate the repetition-induced truth effect with affective pictures once more demonstrates the robustness of the effect, which has been shown for different types of statements and in different modalities (Arkes et al., 1989(Arkes et al., , 1991Garcia-Marques et al., 2015;Hasher et al., 1977;Hawkins & Hoch, 1992;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014), and even when people know that a statement's content is false (Fazio, 2020;Fazio et al., 2015). Likewise, a large study with seven experiments revealed that personality differences in cognitive ability, cognitive style, and need for cognitive closure are not systematically related to the magnitude of the repetition-induced truth effect (De keersmaecker et al., 2020). ...
People believe repeated statements more than new ones, a phenomenon called the repetition-induced truth effect. It is chiefly explained with the subjective processing ease (i.e., fluency) for repeated as compared to new information. To date, the role of affective processes for the repetition induced truth effect is rather unclear. Different mechanisms may play a role: Affect influences processing styles, it may directly inform judgments, and positive affect may be misattributed to fluency/familiarity. In the current study, we compared mechanisms and tested whether a positive, neutral, or negative picture presented before a statement would influence the repetition-induced truth effect. Experiment 1 followed a classical repetition-induced truth effect procedure with two sessions that were a week apart. In the second session, each statement was preceded by an affec-tive picture. We replicated the repetition-induced truth effect, and we observed a statistically significant main effect of affect-statements were rated as truer after a positive rather than a negative or neutral picture, but the interaction between repetition and affect was not statistically significant. In Experiment 2, we aimed to clarify the mechanism behind this finding using only new statements preceded by affective pictures. No statistically significant main effect of affect emerged. We conclude that the results in Experiment 1 were due to the misattribution of positive affect to fluency/ familiarity, enhancing the perceived truth of the statements. In sum, our results suggest two factors that enhance truth judgments: repetition and positive affect, but the effects of affect depend on the exact paradigm used.
... Because the truth effect does not replicate in the classical paradigm if the retention interval between the two judgment phases is only a few minutes instead of several days (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014), many truth-effect studies use a slightly adapted procedure-the exposure paradigm. This paradigm is more economical because it allows researchers to examine the truth effect within a single experimental session. ...
... In this exposure phase, however, participants do not judge the truth of the statements. Instead, they assign the statements to different semantic categories (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014), judge the interestingness of the statements (Fazio et al., 2015), simply read the statements (Unkelbach & Rom, 2017), or engage in other processing tasks. The second phase, often referred to as the test phase, typically takes place directly after the exposure phase or shortly after. ...
... There are only very few studies that have identified boundary conditions of the effect. The truth effect does not replicate with extremely implausible statements (e.g., the earth is a perfect square, Pennycook et al., 2018), with a short retention interval in the classical paradigm Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014), and with a homogeneous list of repeated statements (Dechêne et al., 2009; but see Garcia-Marques et al., 2019). With those exceptions aside, the truth effect has been found in more than 100 studies (Fazio & Sherry, 2020). ...
... Le(s) lien(s) sont indiqués à chaque début de chapitre le cas échéant, et sont disponibles dans le Tableau 1. Pour nos analyses des études de Nadarevic (2007) et de Nadarevic et Erdfelder (2014), les données sont mises à disposition par Lena Nadarevic sur l'Open Science ...
... En plus de ce calcul, l'effet de vérité peut aussi être calculé avec un critère intra-items, soit la différence de vérité perçue entre les mêmes affirmations avant (première tâche de jugement de vérité) et après (deuxième tâche de jugement de vérité) leur répétition. Cette différence de calcul entre un critère inter-items et intra-items est importante, car une méta-analyse a montré que la taille de l'effet était plus large avec un critère inter-items ( arrivé que l'effet de vérité ne soit pas répliqué dans une procédure à deux jugements lorsque les deux tâches de jugement de vérité étaient proches dans le temps (Nadarevic, 2007 ;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014 ;voir Chapitre 6). Les données sont plus abondantes dans la procédure à un jugement que dans la procédure à deux jugements. ...
... Outre ces modérateurs potentiels, présenter des alertes aux participants en les informant de l'existence de l'effet de vérité et de la nécessité de l'éviter a montré une réduction de cet effet (Nadarevic & Aßfalg, 2017 (Dechêne, Stahl, Hansen, & Wänke, 2009, Exp. 1). L'effet de vérité dans une procédure à deux jugements n'a pas été répliqué lorsque les deux sessions de jugement de vérité étaient proches dans le temps (Hawkins & Hoch, 1992 ;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014 ;Nadarevic, 2007), ou du moins il a été diminué (Dechêne et al., 2010). Augmenter le délai avec une procédure à deux jugements pourrait augmenter l'effet de vérité, alors qu'augmenter le délai avec une procédure à un jugement le diminuerait (nous reviendrons sur l'effet modérateur du délai dans les Chapitres 5 et 6). ...
La prolifération rapide de fausses informations est une face obscure de la diffusion massive d’informations. Comprendre comment nous jugeons la vérité des informations que nous rencontrons s’avère crucial. L’exposition répétée aux informations augmente la tendance à les juger vraies. Cet effet de vérité est couramment expliqué par la familiarité, qui serait incorrectement attribuée à la vérité des informations en l’absence de recollection, soit le souvenir précis d’y avoir été exposé avant. Nous pointons des limites de cette hypothèse et proposons une alternative : l’hypothèse de correspondance duale, qui suppose que nous évaluons la vérité des informations à travers leur correspondance avec des contenus récupérés en mémoire. La récupération de ces contenus peut être basée sur la familiarité comme sur la recollection, et ce en particulier lorsque nous ne pouvons pas récupérer des indices de vérité. Dégrader la recollection devrait ainsi augmenter l’effet de vérité pour l’hypothèse de familiarité, mais le diminuer pour l’hypothèse de correspondance duale. Nous avons estimé les mérites relatifs des deux hypothèses en manipulant l’attention à l’encodage et le délai. Les deux hypothèses expliquent aussi bien certains résultats ; des résultats que nous pensions attendus sous les deux hypothèses n’ont pas été mis en évidence ; et l’hypothèse de correspondance duale rend mieux compte de certains résultats que l’hypothèse de familiarité, mais l’inverse est aussi le cas. Dans un volet plus appliqué de la thèse, nous suggérons que l’effet de vérité pourrait exister avec des théories du complot dans des réanalyses corrélationnelles de deux enquêtes à grande échelle. L’hypothèse de correspondance duale est une alternative pertinente à l’hypothèse de familiarité, mais la confrontation des deux hypothèses est à poursuivre pour mieux comprendre les processus de mémoire impliqués dans l’effet de vérité. Cet effet pourrait en outre être impliqué dans des phénomènes sociétaux comme le conspirationnisme, invitant à doter les études d’une plus grande validité externe.
... It works for both written (e. g., Arkes et al., 1991;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014) and auditory (e. g., Garcia-Marques et al., 2015;Hasher et al., 1977) presentations of the statements. Dechêne et al. (2010) conducted a meta-analysis of studies that examined the repetition-induced truth effect and found that it is a robust phenomenon with medium effect sizes. ...
... We did not run the whole experiment at once, which was mainly due to practical reasons (rating the 204 statements and the 51 affective pictures in Session 2 already took about one hour). Also, the repetition-induced truth effect cannot always be replicated if the exposure phase and the judgment phase are administered on the same day because participants might remember the statements and their judgments (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014), and we wanted fluency and picture-induced affective mechanisms to be isolated from other memory influences such as explicit recognition. The positivity-familiarity link may be weakened when stimuli are explicitly remembered (Monin, 2003, Experiment 5). ...
... The failure to modulate the repetition-induced truth effect with affective pictures once more demonstrates the robustness of the effect, which has been shown for different types of statements and in different modalities (Arkes et al., 1989(Arkes et al., , 1991Garcia-Marques et al., 2015;Hasher et al., 1977;Hawkins & Hoch, 1992;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014), and even when people know that a statement's content is false (Fazio, 2020;Fazio et al., 2015). Likewise, a large study with seven experiments revealed that personality differences in cognitive ability, cognitive style, and need for cognitive closure are not systematically related to the magnitude of the repetition-induced truth effect (De keersmaecker et al., 2020). ...
People believe repeated statements more than new ones, a phenomenon called the repetition-induced truth effect. It is chiefly explained with the subjective processing ease (i.e., fluency) for repeated as compared to new information. To date, the role of affective processes for the repetition-induced truth effect is rather unclear. Different mechanisms may play a role: Affect influences processing styles, it may directly inform judgments, and positive affect may be misattributed to fluency/familiarity. In the current study, we compared mechanisms and tested whether a positive, neutral, or negative picture presented before a statement would influence the repetition-induced truth effect. Experiment 1 followed a classical repetition-induced truth effect procedure with two sessions that were a week apart. In the second session, each statement was preceded by an affective picture. We replicated the repetition-induced truth effect, and we observed a statistically significant main effect of affect—statements were rated as truer after a positive rather than a negative or neutral picture, but the interaction between repetition and affect was not statistically significant. In Experiment 2, we aimed to clarify the mechanism behind this finding using only new statements preceded by affective pictures. No statistically significant main effect of affect emerged. We conclude that the results in Experiment 1 were due to the misattribution of positive affect to fluency/familiarity, enhancing the perceived truth of the statements. In sum, our results suggest two factors that enhance truth judgments: repetition and positive affect, but the effects of affect depend on the exact paradigm used.
... Using a fEMG, Dimberg, Thunberg and Elmehed (2000) further demonstrated that such a backward masking technique (subliminal exposure to emotional target faces, masked with neutral faces) causes facial muscle reactions which correspond to the emotional expression of the subliminally presented stimulus. Nadarevic and Erdfelder (2014) showed that the length of the retention interval and the form of the first statement exposure moderate the truth effect. They found no truth effect when using the typical judgment design with a retention interval length of ten minutes. ...
... They found no truth effect when using the typical judgment design with a retention interval length of ten minutes. However, they observed a truth effect when the statements did not have to be judged according to their truthfulness in the first phase of the experiment, or when a retention interval of one week was used instead of ten minutes (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). These findings suggest that memory-based processes have a stronger impact on truth judgments given after a short retention interval, whereas the perceived processing fluency is probably even more the central component in the mechanism underlying the truth effect after a longer interval (for further research results corresponding to this assumption, see also Garcia-Marques et al., 2015;Nadarevic, Plier, Thielmann, & Darancó, 2018). ...
... Notably, the length of the retention interval had a significant influence on the effect size: The truth effect was larger with a ten-minute than with a one-week interval after the first presentation. This finding is in contrast to results from Nadarevic and Erdfelder (2014) who report an increased effect size after a one-week compared to a tenminute interval. However, in their study participants already had to provide truth judgments in the first exposure phase, whereas in the present study a semantic categorization task was used in this phase. ...
People are more likely to judge repeatedly perceived statements as true. A decisive explanation for this so-called truth effect is that the repeated information can be processed more fluently than new information and that this fluency experience renders the information more familiar and trustworthy. Little is known, however, regarding whether and how affective states and dispositional cognitive preferences influence the truth effect. To this end, we conducted two experiments in which we manipulated (a) processing fluency via repetition, (b) the time interval (10 min vs. 1 week) between repetitions, and (c) short-term affective states using the presentation of emotional faces (Experiment 1) or the presence of an irrelevant source for changes in affective states (Experiment 2). Additionally, we assessed the dispositional variables need for cognitive closure (NCC), preference for deliberation (PD) and preference for intuition (PI). Results of Experiment 1 showed that the truth effect was significantly reduced for statements that were followed by a negative prime, although this was the case only for the longer repetition lag. Furthermore, higher NCC and lower PD scores were associated with an increased truth effect. Results of Experiment 2 replicated the moderating role of NCC and further showed that participants, who were provided with an alternative source for changes in their affective states, showed a reduced truth effect. Together, the findings suggest that (a) fluency-related changes in affective states may be (co-)responsible for the truth effect, (b) the truth effect is decreased when the repetition interval is long rather than short, and (c) the truth effect is increased for individuals with a higher need for cognitive closure. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.
... Data set 5 is based on Experiment 1 reported in Nadarevic and Erdfelder (2014). The authors investigated the influence of phase 1 task and retention interval between exposure and judgment phase on the truth effect. ...
... Set 6 contains data from Experiment 2 in Nadarevic and Erdfelder (2014). Participants were assigned to one of two experimental conditions. ...
... Data set 7 is based on Experiment 1 reported in Brashier et al. (2020). Similar to Nadarevic and Erdfelder (2014) Experiment 2, participants initially rated 60 statements either for truthfulness or for interest on a scale from 1 to 6. In the judgment phase, they provided truth ratings for these statements and 60 additional statements. ...
The repetition-induced truth effect refers to a phenomenon where people rate repeated statements as more likely true than novel statements. In this paper, we document qualitative individual differences in the effect. While the overwhelming majority of participants display the usual positive truth effect, a minority are the opposite—they reliably discount the validity of repeated statements, what we refer to as negative truth effect. We examine eight truth-effect data sets where individual-level data are curated. These sets are composed of 1105 individuals performing 38,904 judgments. Through Bayes factor model comparison, we show that reliable negative truth effects occur in five of the eight data sets. The negative truth effect is informative because it seems unreasonable that the mechanisms mediating the positive truth effect are the same that lead to a discounting of repeated statements’ validity. Moreover, the presence of qualitative differences motivates a different type of analysis of individual differences based on ordinal (i.e., Which sign does the effect have?) rather than metric measures. To our knowledge, this paper reports the first such reliable qualitative differences in a cognitive task.
... Data set 5 is based on Experiment 1 reported in Nadarevic and Erdfelder (2014). The authors investigated the influence of phase 1 task and retention interval between exposure and judgment phase on the truth effect. ...
... Set 6 contains data from Experiment 2 in Nadarevic and Erdfelder (2014). Participants were assigned to one of two experimental conditions. ...
... Data set 7 is based on Experiment 1 reported in Brashier et al. (2020). Similar to Nadarevic and Erdfelder (2014) Experiment 2, participants initially rated 60 statements either for truthfulness or for interest on a scale from 1 to 6. In the judgment phase, they provided truth ratings for these statements and 60 additional statements. ...
The repetition-induced truth effect refers to a phenomenon where people rate repeated statements as more likely true than novel statements. In this paper we document qualitative individual differences in the effect. While the overwhelming majority of participants display the usual positive truth effect, a minority are the opposite – they reliably discount the validity of repeated statements, what we refer to as negative truth effect. We examine 8 truth-effect data sets where individual-level data are curated. These sets are composed of 1,105 individuals performing 38,904 judgments. Through Bayes factor model comparison, we show that reliable negative truth effects occur in 5 of the 8 data sets. The negative truth effect is informative because it seems unreasonable that the mechanisms mediating the positive truth effect are the same that lead to a discounting of repeated statements' validity. Moreover, the presence of qualitative differences motivates a different type of analysis of individual differences based on ordinal (i.e., Which sign does the effect have?) rather than metric measures. To our knowledge, this paper reports the first such reliable qualitative differences in a cognitive task.
... The first empirical demonstration of the truth effect was published by Hasher et al. (1977). Since then, the effect has been replicated many times with different stimulus materials and under various experimental conditions (see Henderson et al., 2021;Nadarevic, 2022, for recent reviews; for boundary conditions of the truth effect, see Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). Moreover, the effect is very robust; people even show the effect when holding prior knowledge about the presented statements (Fazio et al., 2015) or when being warned against the effect (Nadarevic & Aßfalg, 2017). ...
... The stimuli were one-hundred-twelve German trivia statements from a previous truth-effect experiment (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). These statements were maximally ambiguous with respect to their factual truth status. ...
Repeatedly seen or heard statements are typically judged to be more likely true than statements not encountered before, a phenomenon referred to as truth effect. Similarly, statements judged to be old typically receive higher truth judgments than statements judged to be new. However, it is unclear whether and how this recognition-based truth effect depends on the latent memory states underlying observed recognition judgments. In order to investigate this question, we used a model-based approach to compare truth judgments as a function of recognition judgments ('old' versus 'new') and their underlying memory states (state of memory certainty vs. state of uncertainty). In three experiments, we observed a recognition-based truth effect and found this effect to be larger in the state of memory certainty than in the state of uncertainty. This result also replicated for subjective instead of modeled memory states. Moreover, we found effects of recognition judgments on judged truth to be stronger than effects of factual repetition in all three experiments. Taken together, our research highlights the role of episodic memory processes in the truth effect and provides a methodological tool that takes underlying memory states into account.
... This broad account of the ITE allows for movement in the magnitude of the ITE via any of the cognitive routes outlined above. Further, research shows that different evaluative goalsdespite the presentation of the same contentat encoding can moderate the size of the ITE (e.g., Hawkins & Hoch, 1992, Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014. We want to note that we use the term "evaluative goals' to refer to general cognitive processing demands at encoding and test, that are dependent on task goals people are assigned. ...
... where the ITE has emerged with a 10-to 15-minute delay interval (Garcia-Marques et al., 2017;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014;Newman et al., 2020;Silva et al., 2016), we included a 10-minute delay between encoding and test phase in our studies. During the 10-minute delay, participants read passages about a topic unrelated to the evaluative goals or target words (e.g., bread-making and cyclones), and then answered multiple-choice questions about the passages. ...
The Transfer-appropriate Processing (TAP) framework has demonstrated enhanced recognition memory when processing operations engaged at encoding and at test match. Our research applied TAP to study the illusory truth effect (ITE). We investigated whether the match/mismatch of evaluative goals at encoding and at test affects the ITE. At encoding, participants saw target words (Experiments 1-3; or full trivia claims Experiments 4-5) and completed an evaluative goal: imagery task or vowel-counting. At test, participants saw target words embedded in trivia claims that were old or new and completed the same (matching) or different (mismatching) evaluative goal that they completed at encoding, before making truth or memory ratings. We found a typical TAP effect for memory judgements when people saw words at encoding, but no TAP effect when people saw claims at encoding. We also found an ITE when people saw claims at encoding, but no ITE when people saw words at encoding (no evidence of TAP moderating truth judgments). Together these results extend both the TAP and ITE literatures, suggesting boundary conditions for TAP and the conditions under which the ITE emerges.
... For example, evaluating stimuli might result in a different level of processing compared to just reading or hearing them (42 or 23%). Asking participants to The square bracket means inclusive and the parentheses means exclusive (e.g., the range (1975, 1980] excludes 1975 but includes 1980) judgements during the exposure phase, which could encourage them to give consistent ratings during the test phase (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). Some studies that directly manipulate the exposure task have found that the choice of task moderates the effect. ...
... Some studies that directly manipulate the exposure task have found that the choice of task moderates the effect. For example, participants rating interest (Brashier, Eliseev, & Marsh, 2020) or categorizing statements (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014) show the illusory truth effect, but those rating truth do not. Further synthesis of the literature could compare effect sizes as a function of Frequency and range of tasks completed during the exposure phase. ...
People believe information more if they have encountered it before, a finding known as the illusory truth effect . But what is the evidence for the generality and pervasiveness of the illusory truth effect? Our preregistered systematic map describes the existing knowledge base and objectively assesses the quality, completeness and interpretability of the evidence provided by empirical studies in the literature. A systematic search of 16 bibliographic and grey literature databases identified 93 reports with a total of 181 eligible studies. All studies were conducted at Western universities, and most used convenience samples. Most studies used verbatim repetition of trivia statements in a single testing session with a minimal delay between exposure and test. The exposure tasks, filler tasks and truth measures varied substantially across studies, with no standardisation of materials or procedures. Many reports lacked transparency, both in terms of open science practices and reporting of descriptive statistics and exclusions. Systematic mapping resulted in a searchable database of illusory truth effect studies ( https://osf.io/37xma/ ). Key limitations of the current literature include the need for greater diversity of materials as stimuli (e.g., political or health contents), more participants from non-Western countries, studies examining effects of multiple repetitions and longer intersession intervals, and closer examination of the dependency of effects on the choice of exposure task and truth measure. These gaps could be investigated using carefully designed multi-lab studies. With a lack of external replications, preregistrations, data and code, verifying replicability and robustness is only possible for a small number of studies.
... And Schnuerch et al. (2020) further concluded that it was unlikely that the mental processes that gave rise to the truth effect were the same as those that gave rise to its reversal. Hence, the effect of repetition was complex and varied, and most likely dependent on additional factors such as how conscious people are of previously encountering the item (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). ...
... See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanny_or_Laurel for illustration.3 A far more humorous version of this effect was inadvertently created by the Sesame Street character Grover who may be perceived to use offensive language with Rosie. ...
In this paper we propose a new set of questions that focus on the direction of effects. In almost all studies the direction is important. For example, in a Stroop task it implies one theoretical explanation if incongruent words are slowed relative to congruent ones, but a completely different theoretical explanation if congruent words are slowed down relative to incongruent ones. We ask a ‘does everybody’ question, such as, ‘does every individual show a Stroop effect?’ Or, ‘does every individual respond faster to loud as soft tones?’ If all individuals truly have effects in the same direction that implicate a common theory we term the differences among them as quantitative individual differences. Conversely, if all individuals truly have effects in contrasting directions that implicate different theories we term the differences among them as qualitative individual differences. Here, we provide a users-guide to the question of whether individual differences are qualitative or quantitative. We discuss new software for assessment, and, more importantly, how the question impacts theory development in cognitive science. Our hope is that this mode of analysis is aproductive tool in researchers’ toolkits.
... One hundred and seventy-six German-language trivia statements served as stimuli in Experiment 1. The statements were maximally ambiguous with respect to their factual truth status (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). Half of the statements were true and half of the statements were false. ...
... In contrast, it is beneficial with regard to most other realworld contexts in which fluency and truth are positively correlated and reliance on fluency to judge the truth of statements is epistemically justified (Reber & Unkelbach, 2010). Besides this practical implication, our results indicate that warnings are less effective in moderating the repetition-based truth effect compared to context manipulations (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). Whether this finding also generalizes to other judgment biases likely caused by fluency-attribution processes, such as the mere-exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968)-the tendency to evaluate repeatedly presented stimuli more positively compared to novel stimuli-or the false-fame effect (Jacoby, Kelley, Brown, & Jasechko, 1989)-the tendency to mistakenly judge previously encountered nonfamous names as famous-is an interesting topic for future research. ...
Typically, people are more likely to consider a previously seen or heard statement as true compared to a novel statement. This repetition-based “truth effect” is thought to rely on fluency-truth attributions as the underlying cognitive mechanism. In two experiments, we tested the nature of the fluency-attribution mechanism by means of warning instructions, which informed participants about the truth effect and asked them to prevent it. In Experiment 1, we instructed warned participants to consider whether a statement had already been presented in the experiment to avoid the truth effect. However, warnings did not significantly reduce the truth effect. In Experiment 2, we introduced control questions and reminders to ensure that participants understood the warning instruction. This time, warning reduced, but did not eliminate the truth effect. Assuming that the truth effect relies on fluency-truth attributions, this finding suggests that warned participants could control their attributions but did not disregard fluency altogether when making truth judgments. Further, we found no evidence that participants overdiscount the influence of fluency on their truth judgments.
... Because the truth effect has substantial implications regarding misinformation and fake news (Pennycook, Cannon, & Rand, 2018;Vosoughi, Roy, & Aral, 2018), many researchers attempted to attenuate the effect. On the one hand, the truth effect diminishes over time (Henderson, Simons, & Barr, 2021), diminishes in response to warnings (Calio, Nadarevic, & Musch, 2020;Jalbert, Newman, & Schwarz, 2020;Nadarevic & Aßfalg, 2017), and disappears when participants are asked for validity ratings in the exposure phase (Brashier, Eliseev, & Marsh, 2020;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). ...
... In the ITE literature, there is to our knowledge no work that has comprehensively explored the effect of and accuracy of a secondary task as a way to capture the impact of dual processing requirements on the ITE. Existing studies have had participants make ratings at encoding, (e.g., rating interest levels or making semantic categorizations at encoding; Ladowsky-Brooks, 2010; Nadarevic and Erdfelder, 2014;Nadarevic and Aßfalg, 2017;Nadarevic et al., 2018). While we may consider these ratings as secondary tasks, these ratings encourage participants to focus on the entire claim. ...
Introduction
People are more likely to believe repeated information—this is known as the Illusory Truth Effect (ITE). Recent research on the ITE has shown that semantic processing of statements plays a key role. In our day to day experience, we are often multi-tasking which can impact our ongoing processing of information around us. In three experiments, we investigate how asking participants to engage in an ongoing secondary task in the ITE paradigm influences the magnitude of the effect of repetition on belief.
Methods
Using an adapted ITE paradigm, we embedded a secondary task into each trial of the encoding and/or test phase (e.g., having participants count the number of vowels in a target word of each trivia claim) and calculated the overall accuracy on the task.
Results
We found that the overall ITE was larger when participants had no ongoing secondary task during the experiment. Further, we predicted and found that higher accuracy on the secondary task was associated with a larger ITE.
Discussion
These findings provide initial evidence that engaging in an ongoing secondary task may reduce the impact of repetition. Our findings suggest that exploring the impact of secondary tasks on the ITE is a fruitful area for further research.
... However, each explanation provides important insights for interventions aimed at reducing (or even eliminating) the truth effect. While resistant to many types of interventions, including monetary incentives ; see also Brashier & Rand, 2021), the truth effect can be mitigated (Brashier, Eliseev, & Marsh, 2020;Calio et al., 2020;Nadarevic & Aßfalg, 2017;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). Importantly, Nadarevic and Aßfalg (2017, Study 2) reduced (but did not eliminate) the truth effect via warnings that presented the truth effect as an illusion leading to inaccurate judgments. ...
People judge repeated statements as more truthful than new statements: a truth effect. In three pre-registered experiments (N = 463), we examined whether people expect repetition to influence truth judgments more for others than for themselves: a bias blind spot in the truth effect. In Experiments 1 and 2, using moderately plausible and implausible statements, respectively, the test for the bias blind spot did not pass the significance threshold set for a two-step sequential analysis. Experiment 3 considered moderately plausible statements but with a larger sample of participants. Additionally, it compared actual performance after a two-day delay with participants’ predictions for themselves and others. This time, we found clear evidence for a bias blind spot in the truth effect. Experiment 3 also showed that participants underestimated the magnitude of the truth effect, especially so for themselves, and that predictions and actual truth effect scores were not significantly related. Finally, an integrative analysis focusing on a more conservative between-participant approach found clear fre- quentist and Bayesian evidence for a bias blind spot. Overall, the results indicate that people (1) hold beliefs about the effect of repetition on truth judgments, (2) believe that this effect is larger for others than for themselves, (3) and underestimate the effect’s magnitude, and (4) particularly so for themselves.
... The truth effect is robust across experimental settings (Dechêne et al., 2010), even if some conditions cancel it out (e.g., asking for truth judgments both in the exposure and judgment phases when only a short time interval separates them; see, e.g., Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). Although the truth effect has long been believed to only occur with unknown factual statements (e.g., Dechêne et al., 2010), recent research showed that the effect is, in fact, far more general. ...
In two high‐powered experiments, we investigated how prior exposure to statements presented in a clickbait format increases the perceived truth of their content. In Experiment 1 ( N = 241), we hypothesized and found that prior exposure increased the proportion of “true” judgments for both non‐clickbait and clickbait content, but with a reduced effect of prior exposure for statements originally presented in a clickbait format. In Experiment 2 ( N = 291), turning to continuous ratings, we found higher truth ratings for repeated than new clickbait statements, even when repetition evidently originated from prior exposure to clickbait statements. The present findings suggest that exposure to clickbait headlines can increase their content's truth judgments despite their overall lack of credibility, although to a lesser extent than for more regular statements. The present research additionally supports an implausibility account rather than a source memory account of the truth effect with clickbait statements.
... Brashier et al. found that prompting participants to consider the accuracy of statements prevented repeated exposure to the statements leading to an illusory truth effect. Therefore, it is plausible that if novel misinformation is encountered within the context of a correction, this may also prompt participants to consider the accuracy of the statement, which may in turn reduce the risk that misinformation exposure will lead to familiarity-driven effects (although the benefits of an accuracy prompt may decrease overtime, see Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). ...
Corrections are a frequently used and effective tool for countering misinformation. However, concerns have been raised that corrections may introduce false claims to new audiences when the misinformation is novel. This is because boosting the familiarity of a claim can increase belief in that claim, and thus exposing new audiences to novel misinformation—even as part of a correction—may inadvertently increase misinformation belief. Such an outcome could be conceptualized as a familiarity backfire effect, whereby a familiarity boost increases false-claim endorsement above a control-condition or pre-correction baseline. Here, we examined whether standalone corrections—that is, corrections presented without initial misinformation exposure—can backfire and increase participants’ reliance on the misinformation in their subsequent inferential reasoning, relative to a no-misinformation, no-correction control condition. Across three experiments (total N = 1156) we found that standalone corrections did not backfire immediately (Experiment 1) or after a one-week delay (Experiment 2). However, there was some mixed evidence suggesting corrections may backfire when there is skepticism regarding the correction (Experiment 3). Specifically, in Experiment 3, we found the standalone correction to backfire in open-ended responses, but only when there was skepticism towards the correction. However, this did not replicate with the rating scales measure. Future research should further examine whether skepticism towards the correction is the first replicable mechanism for backfire effects to occur.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41235-023-00492-z.
... We instructed participants to assign each statement to a topic category to keep the procedure of Experiment similar to Experiments 1 and 2. Moreover, using this procedure, we were able to ascertain that participants read the statements, and we avoided participants attempting to give consistent truth ratings during part 2 of the experiment if they were asked to initially rate the truthfulness during the encoding phase (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). Afterward, participants completed in a 5-min filler task (i.e., playing Tetris). ...
With the expanse of technology, people are constantly exposed to an abundance of information. Of vital importance is to understand how people assess the truthfulness of such information. One indicator of perceived truthfulness seems to be whether it is repeated. That is, people tend to perceive repeated information, regardless of its veracity, as more truthful than new information, also known as the illusory truth effect. In the present study, we examined whether such effect is also observed for opinions and whether the manner in which the information is encoded influenced the illusory truth effect. Across three experiments, participants (n = 552) were presented with a list of true information, misinformation, general opinion, and/or social–political opinion statements. First, participants were either instructed to indicate whether the presented statement was a fact or opinion based on its syntax structure (Exp. 1 & 2) or assign each statement to a topic category (Exp. 3). Subsequently, participants rated the truthfulness of various new and repeated statements. Results showed that repeated information, regardless of the type of information, received higher subjective truth ratings when participants simply encoded them by assigning each statement to a topic. However, when general and social–political opinions were encoded as an opinion, we found no evidence of such effect. Moreover, we found a reversed illusory truth effect for general opinion statements when only considering information that was encoded as an opinion. These findings suggest that how information is encoded plays a crucial role in evaluating truth.
... Contrasting the truth effect is, however, possible (Calio et al., 2020;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014;Nadarevic & Aßfalg, 2017;Brashier et al., 2020). Nadarevic and Aßfalg (2017) used TRUTH EFFECT WITH QUESTIONS 5 warnings to inform participants about the truth effect and asked them to resist it. ...
People attribute higher truth to statements they have previously been exposed to, as compared to new ones. This "truth effect" is pervasive and resistant to many interventions aimed to reduce it. In two pre-registered experiments, we explored whether processing unknown information in an interrogative form can contrast repetition-induced truth. In Experiment 1 (N=100), participants judged the truth value of both repeated and unrepeated sentences. For half of the participants, sentences appeared in a declarative form; for the other half, sentences appeared in an interrogative form, both at exposure and at judgment. Whereas in the declarative condition participants showed the classic truth effect, the effect was not significant in the interrogative condition. In Experiment 2 (N=325), an additional interrogative condition was introduced whereby sentences were presented to participants as questions at exposure, but not at judgment. Compared to the declarative condition, the truth effect was reduced, but still significant, in the two interrogative conditions. Moreover, comparing the two interrogative conditions showed that the truth effect was smaller when sentences were presented as questions only in the exposure phase. We discuss the potential explanations for the impact of questioning on the truth effect, as well as the implications for debiasing strategies.
... More research on the fakeness-by-repetition effect with consequential statements such as conspiracy theories and other types of misinformation would help identify judgment contexts where repetition can be used to fight belief in misinformation. Other interventions, such as orienting information processing on statements' truth right from the exposure phase, may help reduce the truth effect (e.g., Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014;Smelter & Calvillo, 2020; see the "accuracy focus" to reduce the spread of misinformation, e.g., Pennycook et al., 2020Roozenbeek et al., 2021). Whether such manipulations limit the effect of repetition on conspiracism is an important question for future research. ...
Conspiracy theories can be repeatedly encountered, 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 new (displayed only in the truth judgment task). We measured participants' cognitive style with the 3-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.
The preprint is available at: https://psyarxiv.com/3gc6k/
... More research on the fakeness-by-repetition effect with consequential statements such as conspiracy theories and other types of misinformation would help identify judgment contexts where repetition can be used to fight belief in misinformation. Other interventions, such as orienting information processing on statements' truth right from the exposure phase, may help reduce the truth effect (e.g., Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014;Smelter & Calvillo, 2020; see the "accuracy focus" to reduce the spread of misinformation, e.g., Pennycook et al., 2020Roozenbeek et al., 2021). Whether such manipulations limit the effect of repetition on conspiracism is an important question for future research. ...
Conspiracy theories can be repeatedly encountered, 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 new (displayed only in the truth judgment task). We measured participants’ cognitive style with the 3-item Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), and conspiracy mentality with the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (CMQ). We found that repetition increased truth judgments of conspiracy theories, unmoderated by cognitive style and conspiracy mentality. The truth effect was smaller with conspiracy theories than with uncertain factual statements. 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.
... According to the study by Nadarevic and Erdfelder (2014), we selected 36 statements from 6 categories (geography, sports, animal, literature, health, history). Geography and sports categories included positive statements, animal and literature categories included neutral statements, while health and history categories included negative statements. ...
Repetition can lead to an increase in the perceived validity of stimuli, which is referred to as the illusion of truth. To understand how this effect happens and propagates in social settings, we used the socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting paradigm to explore the effect of repeated retrieval for emotional statements on listeners’ memory and the illusion of truth. Results showed that selective retrieval by the speaker could increase the memory for mentioned statements and decrease the memory for unmentioned but related statements in listeners. However, the change in memory affected the believability of statements only when a statement was repeatedly retrieved three times (Experiment 2), rather than once (Experiment 1). Namely, when a statement was retrieved three times by a speaker, the mentioned statements would become more believable and thus triggered a larger illusion of truth effect, while the unmentioned but related statements would become less believable and thus triggered a smaller illusion of truth effect. These findings are conducive to understanding the influence of conversational interactions on the spread of memory and the illusion of truth.
... Other questions ripe for future research include whether the moral repetition effect depends on the medium that depicts the transgression (e.g., text vs. video) or the delay between first encountering a transgression and subsequently judging it. Given that other effects of repetition on judgment emerge after delays of weeks or even months, the moral repetition effect could as well (Bacon, 1979;Brown & Nix, 1996;Henderson et al., 2021;Henkel & Mattson, 2011;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). ...
Reports of moral transgressions can "go viral" through gossip, continuous news coverage, and social media. When they do, the same person is likely to hear about the same transgression multiple times. The present research demonstrates that people will judge the same transgression less severely after repeatedly encountering an identical description of it. I present seven experiments (six of which were preregistered; 73,265 observations from 3,301 online participants and urban residents holding 55 nationalities). Participants rated fake-news sharing, real and hypothetical business transgressions, violations of fundamental "moral foundations," and various everyday wrongdoings as less unethical and less deserving of punishment if they had been shown descriptions of these behaviors previously. Results suggest that affect plays an important role in this moral repetition effect. Repeated exposure to a description of a transgression reduced the negative affect that the transgression elicited, and less-negative affect meant less-harsh moral judgments. Moreover, instructing participants to base their moral judgments on reason, rather than emotion, eliminated the moral repetition effect. An alternative explanation based on perceptions of social norms received only mixed support. The results extend understanding of when and how repetition influences judgment, and they reveal a new way in which moral judgments are biased by reliance on affect. The more people who hear about a transgression, the wider moral outrage will spread; but the more times an individual hears about it, the less outraged that person may be. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... The authors argued that this is because deep processing activates more references in people's semantic networks. Other researchers, in contrast, reported an elimination of the truth effect when participants provided truth judgments in the exposure phase, at least in combination with short retention intervals (e.g., Brashier et al., 2020;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). Although the cognitive mechanisms for this elimination are not yet fully understood, the findings suggest that an initial accuracy focus in the exposure phase reduces participants' susceptibility to the truth effect. ...
Due to the information overload in today's digital age, people may sometimes feel pressured to process and judge information especially fast. In three experiments, we examined whether time pressure increases the repetition-based truth effect-the tendency to judge repeatedly encountered statements more likely as "true" than novel statements. Based on the Heuristic-Systematic Model, a dual-process model in the field of persuasion research, we expected that time pressure would boost the truth effect by increasing reliance on processing fluency as a presumably heuristic cue for truth, and by decreasing knowledge retrieval as a presumably slow and systematic process that determines truth judgments. However, contrary to our expectation, time pressure did not moderate the truth effect. Importantly, this was the case for difficult statements, for which most people lack prior knowledge, as well as for easy statements, for which most people hold relevant knowledge. Overall, the findings clearly speak against the conception of fast, fluency-based truth judgments versus slow, knowledge-based truth judgments. In contrast, the results are compatible with a referential theory of the truth effect that does not distinguish between different types of truth judgments. Instead, it assumes that truth judgments rely on the coherence of localized networks in people's semantic memory, formed by both repetition and prior knowledge.
... And Schnuerch et al. (2020) further concluded that it was unlikely that the mental processes that gave rise to the truth effect were the same as those that gave rise to its reversal. Hence, the effect of repetition was complex and varied, and most likely dependent on additional factors such as how conscious people are of previously encountering the item (Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). ...
In this paper we propose a new set of questions that focus on the direction of effects. In almost all studies the direction is important. For example, in a Stroop task we expect responses to incongruent items to be slower than those to congruent ones, and this direction implies one theoretical explanation. Yet, if congruent words are slowed down relative to incongruent words we would have a completely different theoretical explanation. We ask a ‘does everybody’ question, such as, ‘does every individual show a Stroop effect in the same direction?’ Or, ‘does every individual respond faster to loud tones than soft tones?’ If all individuals truly have effects in the same direction that implicate a common theory, we term the differences among them as quantitative individual differences. Conversely, if all individuals truly have effects in different directions that implicate different theories, we term the differences among them as qualitative individual differences. Here, we provide a users guide to the question of whether individual differences are qualitative or quantitative. We discuss theoretical issues, methodological advances, new software for assessment, and, most importantly, how the question impacts theory development in cognitive science. Our hope is that this mode of analysis is a productive tool in researchers’ toolkits.
... Experiment 2 tests whether this holds as well for the influence of repetition. Truth effect experiments often include information prior to test that some or half of the claims are false (i.e., Begg et al., 1992;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014;Schwartz, 1982;. In Experiment 2 (preregistered at http://aspredicted.org/blind.php?x=8yz2q5), we tested the influence of warnings at the time of test using three conditions: a pre-exposure and pre-test warning condition, a pre-test warning only condition, and a no warning condition. ...
General Audience Summary
People are more likely to believe a statement when they have seen or heard it before, a phenomenon called the illusory truth effect. This has important implications for daily life, where we are repeatedly exposed to both true and false information as we scroll through social media, read the news, or talk with others. We test whether the influence of repetition on belief depends on whether one is warned that information presented may be false. In three experiments, we first asked participants to read a series of trivia claims. Half of the claims were true and half were false. We explicitly told some of the participants that some claims were false, whereas other participants were not alerted to this. After a delay, participants saw another set of trivia claims, including ones they had already seen before and ones that were new. As in earlier studies, participants believed the repeated claims were more true than claims they read for the first time. Importantly, the influence of repetition on belief was over twice as large when participants had not been warned that some claims were false. The protective effect of these initial warnings was observed even when participants did not judge the truth of those claims until three to six days later. However, the warnings were only helpful when they preceded the first reading of the claims. Waiting to warn people until they later had to judge their truth had no detectable influence. These results show that warnings can curb the influence of repetition on belief in false information, provided the warning precedes initial exposure. They also show that many truth effect experiments may have underestimated the impact of repetition on belief due to the presence of warnings in their experimental designs that are usually absent under real world conditions.
... Since then the effect has been replicated numerous times (see Unkelbach et al. 2019, for a review). A standard truth effect experiment consists of (at least) two phases: In the exposure phase, participants are exposed to true and false statements and instructed to process these statements in a certain way (for different processing tasks, see Hawkins and Hoch 1992;Nadarevic and Erdfelder 2014). In the judgment phase, some or all of these statements are presented a second time together with several new statements. ...
To better understand the spread of fake news in the Internet age, it is important to uncover the variables that influence the perceived truth of information. Although previous research identified several reliable predictors of truth judgments-such as source credibility, repeated information exposure, and presentation format-little is known about their simultaneous effects. In a series of four experiments, we investigated how the abovementioned factors jointly affect the perceived truth of statements (Experiments 1 and 2) and simulated social media postings (Experi-ments 3 and 4). Experiment 1 explored the role of source credibility (high vs. low vs. no source information) and presentation format (with vs. without a picture). In Experiments 2 and 3, we additionally manipulated repeated exposure (yes vs. no). Finally, Experiment 4 examined the role of source credibility (high vs. low) and type of repetition (congru-ent vs. incongruent vs. no repetition) in further detail. In sum, we found no effect of presentation format on truth judgments, but strong, additive effects of source credibility and repetition. Truth judgments were higher for information presented by credible sources than non-credible sources and information without sources. Moreover, congruent (i.e., verbatim) repetition increased perceived truth whereas semantically incongruent repetition decreased perceived truth, irrespectively of the source. Our findings show that people do not rely on a single judgment cue when evaluating a statement's truth but take source credibility and their meta-cognitive feelings into account.
... In the current research, we investigated whether internal fact checking, implemented as initial truth judgments, protects people from illusory truth when they "know better." Previous studies asked participants to evaluate truth at exposure (e.g., Arkes et al., 1989;Boehm, 1994;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014), but used ambiguous materials (eliminating the role of previous knowledge). ...
... On average, participants worked for two minutes on the retention task (i.e., the Conscientiousness scale). However, the length of the retention interval can indeed be a crucial variable in truth effect studies (Garcia-Marques, Silva, Reber, & Unkelbach, 2015;Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). Thus, it remains unclear whether our findings replicate when the exposure phase and the judgment phase are separated by a considerably longer time interval. ...
Recent evidence suggests that judgment biases may diminish when a problem is presented in a foreign language. This foreign-language effect has primarily been examined with emotional materials such as risky-choice problems and moral dilemmas. In two experiments, we investigated the effect of foreign-language processing on an emotionally neutral judgment bias: the repetition-based truth effect – the phenomenon that statement repetition enhances the perceived truth of statements. In Experiment 1, we found no evidence for the truth effect to be moderated by the language in which the statements were processed (native language: Hungarian; foreign language: English). In Experiment 2, in turn, we not only manipulated language (native language: German; foreign language: English), but also the retention interval between statement repetitions. Replicating the findings of Experiment 1, language did not moderate the truth effect for statements that were repeated within the same experimental session. However, after a two-week interval, the truth effect was significantly smaller in the foreign-language condition than in the native-language condition. Overall, our findings suggest a faster decay of semantic memory for foreign-language as compared to native-language statements.
... It is important to note here that previous literature in the domain of memory research suggests that over longer intervals between learning of an item and the test episode, both conscious recollection and familiarity show marked forgetting effects (for a review see Yonelinas, 2002). Thus, it is possible that the magnitude of the illusions of truth is somewhat smaller when truth judgments are delayed by one week (but see Nadarevic & Erdfelder, 2014). However, in light of all the evidence showing illusions of truth even after several weeks have passed, we predict to find truth effects in the delayed judgment condition. ...
Repeated statements are rated as subjectively truer than comparable new statements, even though repetition alone provides no new, probative information (the illusory truth effect). Contrary to some theoretical predictions, the illusory truth effect seems to be similar in magnitude for repetitions occurring after minutes or weeks. This Registered Report describes a longitudinal investigation of the illusory truth effect (n = 608, n = 567 analysed) in which we systematically manipulated intersession interval (immediately, one day, one week, and one month) in order to test whether the illusory truth effect is immune to time. Both our hypotheses were supported: We observed an illusory truth effect at all four intervals (overall effect: χ 2(1) = 169.91; M repeated = 4.52, M new = 4.14; H1), with the effect diminishing as delay increased (H2). False information repeated over short timescales might have a greater effect on truth judgements than repetitions over longer timescales. Researchers should consider the implications of the choice of intersession interval when designing future illusory truth effect research.
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.
The Repetition-induced Truth Effect: A Critical Note on the Familiarity Hypothesis
Repeated factual statements are judged truer than new statements. This truth effect can have direct implications in erroneous beliefs in our media environment, where the repeated acquisition of the same piece of information is likely (news channels; website (re)visits; social networks). In this paper, we discuss the mechanisms underlying the truth effect through a review of the main results. The dominant current explanation of the effect of repetition on the judgment of truth is the familiarity/fluency hypothesis and the possible role of recollection has been underestimated in light of available results. We propose that a correspondence account, according to which both target recollection and familiarity mediate the effect, would better account for the results and suggest further studies to better understand this phenomenon.
Authors use in-text citations to provide support for their claims and to acknowledge work done by others. How much do such citations increase the believability of an author's claims? It is possible that readers (especially novices) might ignore citations as they read. Alternatively, citations ostensibly serve as evidence for a claim, which justifies using them as a basis for a judgment of truth. In six experiments, subjects saw true and false trivia claims of varying difficulty presented with and without in-text citations (e.g., The cat is the only pet not mentioned in the bible) and rated the likelihood that each statement was true. A mini meta-analysis summarizing the results of all six experiments indicated that citations had a small but reliable effect on judgments of truth (d = 0.13, 95% CI [0.06, 0.20]) suggesting that subjects were more likely to believe claims that were presented with citations than without. We discuss this citation effect and how it is similar and different to related research suggesting that nonprobative photos can increase judgments of truth.
Repeated statements are more frequently judged to be true. One position relates this so-called “truth effect” to metacognitive experiences of fluency, suggesting that repeated statements are more frequently judged to be true because they are processed more fluently. Although most prior research focused on why repetition influences truth judgments, considerably less is known about when fluency is used as information. The present research addresses this question and investigates whether reliance on fluency is moderated by learning experiences. Specifically, we focus on changes in the reliance on fluency over the course of time. A series of experiments reveals that fluency is more likely to be used in truth judgments when previous reliance on fluency has resulted in valid judgments, compared with when previous reliance on fluency was misleading. These findings suggest that reliance on fluency in judgments is a finely tuned process that takes prior experiences with fluency-based judgments into account. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The validity effect is the increase in perceived validity of repeated statements. In the first experiment, subjects rated repeated and nonrepeated statements for validity, familiarity, and source recognition. Validity and familiarity were enhanced by repetition, but source dissociation was not. A path analysis suggested that familiarity mediates perceived validity. In Experiment 2, statements presented in a natural setting were later rated for perceived validity, familiarity, and source recognition. Repetition had parallel effects on validity and familiarity ratings, but source dissociation was unaffected. Controlling for familiarity statistically eliminated the validity effect. In Experiment 3, the effect of prior knowledge on validity judgments was studied. Subjects rated the validity of statements that were related or unrelated to their field of expertise. Those most knowledgeable about the topic were most likely to exhibit the validity effect. Overall, the results suggest that familiarity is the basis of judged validity.
Previous research has shown that repeated statements are rated as more true than new ones. In Exp I, 98 undergraduates rated sentences for truth on 2 occasions, 3 wks apart. Results indicate that the repetition effect depends on Ss' detection of the fact that a statement is repeated: statements that are judged to be repeated are rated as truer than statements judged to be new, regardless of the actual status of the statements. Exp II with 64 undergraduates showed that repeated statements increment in credibility even if Ss were informed that they were repeated. It was further determined that statements that contradicted early ones were rated as relatively true if misclassified as repetitions but that statements judged to be changed were rated as relatively false: Ss were predisposed to believe statements that seemed to reaffirm existing knowledge and to disbelieve statements that contradicted existing knowledge. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Reports 4 experiments concerning the effect of repetition on rated truth (the illusory-truth effect). Statements were paired with differentially credible sources (true vs false). Old trues would be rated true on 2 bases, source recollection and statement familiarity. Old falses, however, would be rated false if sources were recollected, leaving the unintentional influence of familiarity as their only basis for being rated true. Even so, falses were rated truer than new statements unless sources were especially memorable. Estimates showed the contributions of the 2 influences to be independent; the intentional influence of recollection was reduced if control was impaired, but the unintentional influence of familiarity remained constant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Using factual information of uncertain truth value as the stimulus material, previous investigators have found that repeated statements are rated more valid than non-repeated statements. Experiments 1 and 1A were designed to determine if this effect would also occur for opinion statements and for statements initially rated either true or false. Subjects were exposed to a 108-statement list one week and a second list of the same length a week later. This second list was comprised of some of the statements seen earlier plus some statements seen for the first time. Results suggested that all types of repeated statements are rated as more valid than their non-repeated counterparts. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the validity-enhancing effect of repetition does not occur in subject domains about which a person claims not be knowledgeable. From the results of both studies we concluded that familiarity is a basis for the judged validity of statements. The relation between this phenomenon and the judged validity of decisions and predictions was also discussed.
Subjects rated how certain they were that each of 60 statements was true or false. The statements were sampled from areas of knowledge including politics, sports, and the arts, and were plausible but unlikely to be specifically known by most college students. Subjects gave ratings on three successive occasions at 2-week intervals. Embedded in the list were a critical set of statements that were either repeated across the sessions or were not repeated. For both true and false statements, there was a significant increase in the validity judgments for the repeated statements and no change in the validity judgments for the non-repeated statements. Frequency of occurrence is apparently a criterion used to establish the referential validity of plausible statements.
Prior research has shown that repeating a statement results in an increase in its judged validity. One explanation that has been advanced to account for this finding is that familiarity is used as a basis to assess validity. Another explanation is that when subjects dissociate a statement from its true source, that statement is judged to be more valid. According to this latter explanation, repeated statements tend to be seen as more valid because each presentation is perceived as coming from different sources. Hence repeated statements benefit from perceived convergent validity. Experiment 1 tested these two explanations by presenting 40 statements during one session and repeating 20 of them amid 20 new ones either 1, 3, or 5 weeks later. A causal analysis lent support to both explanations, although source dissociation was found not to be a necessary condition for the validity-enhancing effect of repetition. Experiments 2 and 3 were designed to examine the boundary conditions for the influence of repetition on perceived validity. In Experiment 2 half of the subjects heard sentences about China, whereas the other half of the subjects heard control sentences. A week later (Week 2) one-third of the subjects in each of these two groups read passages about the specific topics covered by the China sentences, one-third read about other topics dealing with China, and one-third read control passages having nothing to do with China. One week later all subjects gave validity ratings to various sentences pertaining to China, including those seen during Week 1. The results indicated that hearing any passage having to do with China during Week 2 caused subjects to increase their judged validity of the China sentences originally seen during Week 1. In Experiment 3 some sentences were repeated each week over a 6-week period. The difference in rated validity between the repeated and nonrepeated statements was manifested by the second week and persisted during subsequent repetitions. The results of the three experiments were compared to findings in the semantic priming literature.
Repetition has been shown to increase subjective truth ratings of trivia statements. This truth effect can be measured in two ways: (a) as the increase in subjective truth from the first to the second encounter (within-items criterion) and (b) as the difference in truth ratings between repeated and other new statements (between-items criterion). Qualitative differences are assumed between the processes underlying both criteria. A meta-analysis of the truth effect was conducted that compared the two criteria. In all, 51 studies of the repetition-induced truth effect were included in the analysis. Results indicate that the between-items effect is larger than the within-items effect. Moderator analyses reveal that several moderators affect both effects differentially. This lends support to the notion that different psychological comparison processes may underlie the two effects. The results are discussed within the processing fluency account of the truth effect.
G*Power is a free power analysis program for a variety of statistical tests. We present extensions and improvements of the version introduced by Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, and Buchner (2007) in the domain of correlation and regression analyses. In the new version, we have added procedures to analyze the power of tests based on (1) single-sample tetrachoric correlations, (2) comparisons of dependent correlations, (3) bivariate linear regression, (4) multiple linear regression based on the random predictor model, (5) logistic regression, and (6) Poisson regression. We describe these new features and provide a brief introduction to their scope and handling.
Repeated statements receive higher truth ratings than new statements. Given that repetition leads to greater experienced processing fluency, the author proposes that fluency is used in truth judgments according to its ecological validity. Thus, the truth effect occurs because people learn that fluency and truth tend to be positively correlated. Three experiments tested this notion. Experiment 1 replicated the truth effect by directly manipulating processing fluency; Experiment 2 reversed the effect by manipulating the correlation between fluency and truth in a learning phase. Experiment 3 generalized this reversal by showing a transfer of a negative correlation between perceptual fluency (due to color contrast) and truth to truth judgments when fluency is due to prior exposure (i.e., repetition).
The question of the generalizability of laboratory experiments to the "natural settings of ordinary people" was investigated in a case study on the frequency-validity relationship. Previously advocated by John Locke and David Hartley, this relationship states that the mere repetition of plausible but unfamiliar assertions increases the belief in the validity of the assertions, independent of their actual truth or falsity. The external validity of this relationship was tested for a random sample drawn from telephone listings of adults living in Schwabing, Munich. Subjects were tested in their homes rather than in a university laboratory. The increase in mean validity judgments by repetition, its independence from actual truth or falsity, as well as the absolute and relative size of the effect were found to be in excellent agreement with previous laboratory findings. The external validity of the frequency-validity relationship would therefore seem to be demonstrated. In addition, the relationship seems independent of the intersession intervals, the time intervals between the assertions, and the sex of the person making the assertions. This result is consistent with the hypothesis of "automatic" processing of frequency.
General knowledge questions with two answer alternatives were employed in experimental session 1; in session 2, the same questions were presented together with participants’ own session-1 responses. In order to examine whether or not the episodic information of participant's own responses would suppress standard confidence-rating mode in session 2, rates of answer- and confidence-changes between sessions were analyzed. In session 2, participants were able to change the confidence value to another, if they thought the initial value inadequate. They then had a chance to change the answer to the other and rated their confidence in the new answer. The major results were as follows: (a) Between-session answer change rate was very low; (b) Between-session answer change rate was not a monotonic decreasing function of confidence; (c) However, the rate depended on confidence change from session 1 to before-answer-change rating. These results clearly contrasted with a previous study ( Saito, 1998) in which episodic information of participant's own session 1 answers and confidence values was not presented. It was argued that the episodic information triggered another mode of confidence rating or a decision inertia effect.
The revelation effect is a change in response behavior induced by a preceding problem-solving task. Previous studies have shown a revelation effect for faces when the problem-solving task includes attractiveness ratings of the faces. Immediately after this problem-solving task participants judged faces as more familiar than without the problem-solving task. We replicated this result in Experiment 1. Based on the discrepancy-attribution hypothesis, we predicted that a problem-solving task that excludes attractiveness ratings would not elicit a revelation effect. However, we found a reversed revelation effect with a problem-solving task that required participants to solve a puzzle of each face (Experiments 2–3). In Experiments 2 and 3, participants judged faces as less familiar after the puzzle task. Our findings support the notion that the revelation effect may manifest as either an increase or a decrease of the experienced familiarity towards the recognition probe. However, our results contradict all current theories of the revelation effect. We discuss implications of our findings for revelation effect theories and provide a possible explanation.
Can mood states influence the perceived truth of ambiguous or novel information? This study predicted and found that mood can significantly influence peoples' reliance on processing fluency when making truth judgments. Fluent information was more likely to be judged as true (the truth effect), and consistent with Bless and Fiedler's (2006) assimilative vs. accommodative processing model, negative mood eliminated, and positive mood maintained people's reliance on processing fluency as an indication of truth. Post hoc analyses confirmed the predicted mood-induced differences in processing style, as judges in a negative mood adopted more accommodative processing and paid greater attention to external stimulus information. The relevance of these results to contemporary affect-cognition theories is discussed, and the real-life implications of mood effects on truth judgments in applied areas are considered.
Two experiments investigated the "truth effect"; i.e., the finding that, when statements of uncertain truth value are repeated, the repetition tends to shift their truth-value ratings toward the "true" end of the scale. In Experiment 1, one group of subjects rated statements on a 7-point truth-value scale while another group rated the same statements on a 7-point scale of preexperimental familiarity. Presentation of statements in the experimental context before the rating task increased both their perceived truth value and their perceived preexperimental familiarity, but there was evidence against the hypothesis that judgments of truth value were mediated directly by judgments of preexperimental familiarity. In Experiment 2, the truth effect was found regardless of whether the repeated statements were shown in the context of other repeated statements or in the context of new statements, thus ruling out the possibility that the effect depends on a mixed-list contrast or sensitization effect. The present results greatly extend the generality of the truth effect found in earlier experiments, and they make more plausible the suggestion that increments in belief as the result of repetition may be an important factor in the accumulation of general knowledge.
This article tests 2 competing explanations for the truth effect, the finding that repeated statements are believed more than new statements. Previous research has put forth 2 explanations for this effect-subjective familiarity and perceived source variability. The subjective familiarity explanation holds that repeated statements feel more familiar and are therefore believed more than new statements. This explanation has received strong support in the literature. The source variability explanation holds that people attribute repeated statements to different sources; this belief, that multiple sources endorse the statement, increases belief in repeated statements relative to new statements attributed to a single source. However, previous studies testing this explanation have confounded source variability with source credibility. This research aims to tease apart the effects of subjective familiarity and source variability while holding source credibility constant across conditions. Results of the first 2 experiments manipulating number of sources and measuring recognition implicate subjective familiarity rather than perceived source variability as the mechanism underlying the truth effect. However, the third study demonstrates that source variability does enhance belief in repeated statements that are initially perceived as low in plausibility. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Extending the well-established negativity bias in human cognition to truth judgments, it was recently shown that negatively framed statistical statements are more likely to be considered true than formally equivalent statements framed positively. However, the underlying processes responsible for this effect are insufficiently understood. Therefore, a multinomial processing tree model is herein proposed to distinguish between differences in (a) knowledge or (b) response bias that may account for the framing effect. Three model validation experiments supported the psychological interpretability of model parameters. Model application revealed that the framing effect can be considered a bias: Given insufficient knowledge, individuals more likely guessed "true" when faced with a negatively framed statistical statement. The probability of conclusive knowledge, however, remained constant across frames. In summary, this article puts forwards and validates a formal model that can be used more generally to investigate processes underlying truth judgments. Based on this model, it is herein shown that one particular phenomenon - framing effects observed for statistical statements - can be considered a response bias, rather than the upshot of differential knowledge.
Non-native speech is harder to understand than native speech. We demonstrate that this “processing difficulty” causes non-native speakers to sound less credible. People judged trivia statements such as “Ants don't sleep” as less true when spoken by a non-native than a native speaker. When people were made aware of the source of their difficulty they were able to correct when the accent was mild but not when it was heavy. This effect was not due to stereotypes of prejudice against foreigners because it occurred even though speakers were merely reciting statements provided by a native speaker. Such reduction of credibility may have an insidious impact on millions of people, who routinely communicate in a language which is not their native tongue.
Statements' rated truth increases when people encounter them repeatedly. Processing fluency is a central variable to explain this truth effect. However, people experience processing fluency positively, and these positive experiences might cause the truth effect. Three studies investigated positivity and fluency influences on the truth effect. Study 1 found correlations between elicited positive feelings and rated truth. Study 2 replicated the repetition-based truth effect, but positivity did not influence the effect. Study 3 conveyed positive and negative correlations between positivity and truth in a learning phase. We again replicated the truth effect, but positivity only influenced judgments for easy statements in the learning phase. Thus, across three studies, we found positivity effects on rated truth, but not on the repetition-based truth effect: We conclude that positivity does not explain the standard truth effect, but the role of positive experiences for truth judgments deserves further investigation.
In three learning experiments we examined how subjects' level of involvement during initial exposure to consumer trivia influences what they learn and what they subsequently come to believe. Subjects rated consumer trivia statements as more true when they had been exposed to those statements earlier in the experiment. Simple repetition increased subsequent truth ratings. Moreover, when subjects processed the information during initial exposure in a less involving fashion, the effect of repetition on truth became more pronounced. Familiarity emerged as a key mediator of the truth effect. When subjects experienced an "it rings a bell" reaction, they judged the information to be more true. Finally, under low-involvement processing, the truth effect increased when subjects engaged in a processing task (rote rehearsal) that increased familiarity without increasing evaluative processing of the information. Copyright 1992 by the University of Chicago.
The subjective impression that statements are true increases when statements are presented repeatedly. There are two sources for this truth effect: An increase in validity based on recollection (a controlled process) and increase in processing fluency due to repeated exposure (an automatic process). Using multinomial processing trees (MPT), we present a comprehensive model of the truth effect. Furthermore, we show that whilst the increase in processing fluency is indeed automatic, the interpretation and use of that experience is not. Experiment 1 demonstrates the standard use of the fluency experience and Experiment 2 demonstrates that people can change the interpretation of the experience according to its ecological validity. By implication, the truth effect represents the adaptive usage of feedback received from internal processes.
Statements of the form "Osorno is in Chile" were presented in colors that made them easy or difficult to read against a white background and participants judged the truth of the statement. Moderately visible statements were judged as true at chance level, whereas highly visible statements were judged as true significantly above chance level. We conclude that perceptual fluency affects judgments of truth.
We explored the role that poetic form can play in people's perceptions of the accuracy of aphorisms as descriptions of human behavior. Participants judged the ostensible accuracy of unfamiliar aphorisms presented in their textually surviving form or a semantically equivalent modified form. Extant rhyming aphorisms in their original form (e.g., "What sobriety conceals, alcohol reveals") were judged to be more accurate than modified versions that did not preserve rhyme ("What sobriety conceals, alcohol unmasks"). However, the perceived truth advantage of rhyming aphorisms over their modified forms was attenuated when people were cautioned to distinguish aphorisms' poetic qualities from their semantic content. Our results suggest that rhyme, like repetition, affords statements an enhancement in processing fluency that can be misattributed to heightened conviction about their truthfulness.
Discounting is a causal-reasoning phenomenon in which increasing confidence in the likelihood of a particular cause decreases confidence in the likelihood of all other causes. This article provides evidence that individuals apply discounting principles to making causal attributions about internal cognitive states. In particular, the three studies reported show that individuals will fail to use the availability heuristic in frequency estimations when salient causal explanations for availability exist. Experiment 1 shows that fame is used as a cue for discounting in estimates of surname frequency. Experiment 2 demonstrates that individuals discount the availability of their own last name. Experiment 3, which used individuals' initials in a letter-frequency estimation task, demonstrates that simple priming of alternative causal models leads to discounting of availability. Discounting of cognitive states can occur spontaneously, even when alternative causal models are never explicitly provided.
Fluency - the subjective experience of ease or difficulty associated with completing a mental task - has been shown to be an influential cue in a wide array of judgments. Recently researchers have begun to look at how fluency impacts judgment through more subtle and indirect routes. Fluency impacts whether information is represented in working memory and what aspects of that information are attended to. Additionally, fluency has an impact in strategy selection; depending on how fluent information is, people engage in qualitatively different cognitive operations. This suggests that the role of fluency is more nuanced than previously believed and that understanding fluency could be of critical importance to understanding cognition more generally.
The passion of labour
- R W Lynd
Lynd, R. W. (2008). The passion of labour. Charleston: BiblioBazaar. (Original work published 1920).
The attribution and discounting of perceptual fluency: Preliminary tests of a perceptual fluency Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences
- R F Bornstein
- P R Agostino
Bornstein, R. F., & D'Agostino, P. R. (1994). The attribution and discounting of perceptual fluency: Preliminary tests of a perceptual fluency/attributional Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hilsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.