Truth by Repetition: Explanations and Implications

Unkelbach, Christian; Koch, Alex; Silva, Rita R.; Garcia‐Marques, Teresa

doi:10.1177/0963721419827854

Cited by 150 publications

(131 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…We postulate that pictures (in Experiment 1) and prior exposure (in Experiment 3) may have had similar mechanisms for their effects, however because we did not manipulate familiarity directly it is possible that other factors were involved in influencing our results. The existence of a dynamic system of various contributing causes is consistent with theoretical literature on repetition induced truth effects (Unkelbach, Koch, Silva, & Garcia‐Marques, 2019; Unkelbach & Stahl, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Pictures and repeated exposure increase perceived accuracy of news headlines

Smelter

Calvillo

2020

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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Summary Fake news, deliberately inaccurate and often biased information that is presented as accurate reporting, is perceived as a serious threat. Recent research on fake news has documented a high general susceptibility to the phenomenon and has focused on investigating potential explanatory factors. The present study examined how features of news headlines affected their perceived accuracy. Across four experiments (total N = 659), we examined the effects of pictures, perceptual clarity, and repeated exposure on the perceived accuracy of news headlines. In all experiments, participants received a set of true and false news headlines and rated their accuracy. The presence of pictures and repeated exposure increased perceived accuracy, whereas manipulations of perceptual clarity did not show the predicted effects. The effects of pictures and repeated exposure were similar for true and false headlines. These results demonstrate that accompanying pictures and repeated exposure can affect evaluations of truth of news headlines.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Pictures and repeated exposure increase perceived accuracy of news headlines

Smelter

Calvillo

2020

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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“…Indeed, repetition activates the perirhinal cortex, a region of the brain associated with fluency (Wang et al 2016 ). Other explanations for illusory truth posit that frequency of occurrence may be a cue to the validity of information, recognizing information and feelings of familiarity may increase belief in the information, or that repeated information creates a set of coherent references in memory, which in turn leads to greater perceived accuracy (Unkelbach et al 2019 ). A meta-analysis has demonstrated the robustness of this effect (Dechêne et al 2010 ).…”

Section: Statement Of Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

An initial accuracy focus reduces the effect of prior exposure on perceived accuracy of news headlines

Calvillo

Smelter

2020

Cogn. Research

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The illusory truth effect occurs when the repetition of a claim increases its perceived truth. Previous studies have demonstrated the illusory truth effect with true and false news headlines. The present study examined the effects that different ratings made during initial exposure have on the illusory truth effect with news headlines. In two experiments, participants (total N = 575) rated a set of news headlines in one of two conditions. Some participants rated how interesting they were, and others rated how truthful they were. Participants later rated the perceived accuracy of a larger set of headlines that included previously rated and new headlines. In both experiments, prior exposure increased perceived accuracy for participants who made initial interest ratings, but not for participants who made initial truthfulness ratings. The increase in perceived accuracy that accompanies repeated exposure was attenuated when participants considered the accuracy of the headlines at initial exposure. Experiment 2 also found evidence for a political bias: participants rated politically concordant headlines as more accurate than politically discordant headlines. The magnitude of this bias was related to performance on a cognitive reflection test; more analytic participants demonstrated greater political bias. These results highlight challenges that fake news presents and suggest that initially encoding headlines’ perceived truth can serve to combat the illusion that a familiar headline is a truthful one.

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“…One such cue is repetition. People are more likely to think that false statements are true when they are repeated (Hasher, Goldstein, & Toppino, 1977;Unkelbach, Koch, Silva, & Garcia-Marques, 2019).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Repetition Increases Perceived Truth Even for Known Falsehoods

Fazio

2020

Collabra: Psychology

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Repetition increases belief in false statements. This illusory truth effect occurs with many different types of statements (e.g., trivia facts, news headlines, advertisements), and even occurs when the false statement contradicts participants' prior knowledge. However, existing studies of the effect of prior knowledge on the illusory truth effect share a common flaw; they measure participants' knowledge after the experimental manipulation and thus conditionalize responses on posttreatment variables. In the current study, we measure prior knowledge prior to the experimental manipulation and thus provide a cleaner measurement of the causal effect of repetition on belief. We again find that prior knowledge does not protect against the illusory truth effect. Repeated false statements were given higher truth ratings than novel statements, even when they contradicted participants' prior knowledge.

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Truth by Repetition: Explanations and Implications

Cited by 150 publications

References 32 publications

Pictures and repeated exposure increase perceived accuracy of news headlines

Pictures and repeated exposure increase perceived accuracy of news headlines

An initial accuracy focus reduces the effect of prior exposure on perceived accuracy of news headlines

Repetition Increases Perceived Truth Even for Known Falsehoods

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