Reminders of Everyday Misinformation Statements Can Enhance Memory for and Beliefs in Corrections of Those Statements in the Short Term

Abstract

Fake-news exposure can cause misinformation to be mistakenly remembered and believed. In two experiments ( Ns = 96), we examined whether reminders of misinformation could improve memory for and beliefs in corrections. Subjects read factual statements and misinformation statements taken from news websites and then read statements that corrected the misinformation. Misinformation reminders appeared before some corrections but not others. Subjects then attempted to recall facts, indicated their belief in those recalls, and indicated whether they remembered corrections and misinformation. In Experiment 1, we did not constrain subjects’ report criteria. But in Experiment 2, we encouraged conservative reporting by instructing subjects to report only information they believed to be true. Reminders increased recall and belief accuracy. These benefits were greater both when misinformation was recollected and when subjects remembered that corrections had occurred. These findings demonstrate one situation in which misinformation reminders can diminish the negative effects of fake-news exposure in the short term.

The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction

“…other putative familiarity backfire effects did not compare the backfire condition with a proper baseline (for reviews see 92,256 ). Strong evidence against familiarity backfire comes from findings that explicit reminders of misinformation enhance the effect of corrections 104,290 . although some researchers have argued that familiarity backfire might occur when a correction spreads novel misinformation to new audiences 185 , only one study has found support for this claim (and only in one of two experiments) 291 , with other studies finding no evidence 112,151,222 .…”

Timing matters when correcting fake news

“…Encoding retractions requires building a coherent mental model (7), which is easiest when misinformation and its correction are coactive (8). This mechanism explains why corrections rarely reinforce the original false belief (i.e., do not "backfire") (9)-it is actually best to restate a myth when retracting it (10,11). Thus, labeling a headline as "true" or "false" could increase salience and updating.…”

The relationship between political affiliation and beliefs about sources of “fake news”

“…Recent evidence, for example, shows that deliberately generating misleading information in the guise of a game improves the ability to detect and resist fake news (Roozenbeek and van der Linden 2019). Other recent work shows that people are better able to remember corrections to false statements when given reminders of those statements (Wahlheim et al 2020).…”