Terrorists brought down the plane!—No, actually it was a technical fault: Processing corrections of emotive information

Abstract

It is well known that people often continue to rely on initial misinformation even if this information is later corrected and even if the correction itself is remembered. This article investigated the impact of emotionality of the material on people's ability to discount corrected misinformation. The focus was on moderate levels of emotionality comparable to those elicited by real-world news reports. Emotionality has frequently been shown to have an impact upon reasoning and memory, but the generality of this influence remains unclear. In three experiments, participants read a report of a fictitious plane crash that was initially associated with either an emotionally laden cause (terrorist attack) or an emotionally more neutral cause (bad weather). This initial attribution was followed by a retraction and presentation of an alternative cause (faulty fuel tank). The scenarios demonstrably affected participants' self-reported feelings. However, all three experiments showed that emotionality does not affect the continued influence of misinformation.

Persistence and plasticity in the human memory system: An empirical investigation of the overwriting hypothesis

“…However, the retraction message did not eliminate the influence of the false information: the number of false theme references was higher in the group who experienced false information with a retraction than in the group who never experienced the false information (Hypothesis 2; F+R+ > F-R-). Therefore, like others (Ecker et al, 2010(Ecker et al, , 2011aH. M. Johnson & Seifert, 1994;Wilkes & Reynolds, 1999), we found that making an alternative account readily available was capable of attenuating, but not eliminating the CIE.…”

“…References had to be 'causal' in nature (see Ecker et al, 2011a): the participant had to explicitly state, or strongly imply, that the warehouse fire was caused by gas and oil paints/unattended hot stove or that the zoo breakout was caused by the cage being left open by a work experience student/an activist cutting a hole in the enclosure.…”

“…Although a number of di erent alternative accounts have been employed in CIE studies with varying degrees of success (Ecker et al, 2010(Ecker et al, , 2011aH. M. Johnson & Seifert, 1994;Wilkes & Reynolds, 1999), we are not aware of any systematic attempt to evaluate the causal coverage hypothesis.…”

“…The mental models theory might also o er some insight into why one of the most e ective techniques for reducing the CIE is the provision of an alternative explanation for the event (Ecker et al, 2010;Ecker, Lewandowsky, & Apai, 2011a;H. M. Johnson & Seifert, 1994;Wilkes & Reynolds, 1999).…”

Correcting false information in memory: Manipulating the strength of misinformation encoding and its retraction

“…For example, if a fictional character is accused of a crime but is later exonerated, people continue to use the outdated misinformation (that the person is guilty) in subsequent inferences, even if they recall the correction. The continued influence effect has been demonstrated in many settings (e.g., Ecker, Lewandowsky, & Apai, 2011;Ecker, Lewandowsky, & Tang, 2010;van Oostendorp, 1996;Wilkes & Leatherbarrow, 1988). In the real world, continued belief in unsubstantiated claims can have serious implications, as in the case of the purported link between certain vaccines and autism (Baron-Cohen, 2009) or between Iraq and weapons of mass destruction (WMDs; Kull, Ramsay, & Lewis, 2003;Lewandowsky, Stritzke, Oberauer, & Morales, 2005, 2009.…”