113:, David Goldstein, and Thomas Toppino presented the same group of college students with lists of sixty plausible statements, some of them true and some of them false. The second list was distributed two weeks after the first, and the third two weeks after that. Twenty statements appeared on all three lists; the other forty items on each list were unique to that list. Participants were asked how confident they were of the truth or falsity of the statements, which concerned matters about which they were unlikely to know anything. (For example, "The first air force base was launched in New Mexico." Or "
146:; the study suggested that the effect can influence participants who actually knew the correct answer to begin with, but who were swayed to believe otherwise through the repetition of a falsehood. For example, when participants encountered on multiple occasions the statement "A sari is the name of the short plaid skirt worn by Scots," some of them were likely to come to believe it was true, even though these same people were able to correctly answer the question "What is the name of the short pleated skirt worn by Scots?"
182:
memory is "more fluent or familiar than when it was first learned" and thus produces an illusion of truth. The effect grew even more pronounced when statements were repeated twice and yet more pronounced when they were repeated four times. The researchers thus concluded that memory retrieval is a powerful method for increasing the so-called validity of statements and that the illusion of truth is an effect that can be observed without directly polling the factual statements in question.
153:, the facility with which people comprehend statements. "Repetition," explained the researcher, "makes statements easier to process (i.e. fluent) relative to new statements, leading people to the (sometimes) false conclusion that they are more truthful." When an individual hears something for a second or third time, their brain responds faster to it and misattributes that fluency as a signal for truth.
139:
At first, the illusory truth effect was believed to occur only when individuals are highly uncertain about a given statement. Psychologists also assumed that "outlandish" headlines wouldn't produce this effect however, recent research shows the illusory truth effect is indeed at play with false news.
125:
The effect works because when people assess truth, they rely on whether the information agrees with their understanding or whether it feels familiar. The first condition is logical as people compare new information with what they already know to be true and consider the credibility of both sources.
181:
Studies in 1981 and 1983 showed that information deriving from recent experience tends to be viewed as "more fluent and familiar" than new experience. A 2011 study by Jason D. Ozubko and
Jonathan Fugelsang built on this finding by demonstrating that, generally speaking, information retrieved from
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asked participants to judge the truth of statements attributed to various people, some of whose names were easier to pronounce than others. Consistently, statements by persons with easily pronounced names were viewed as being more truthful than those with names that were harder to pronounce. The
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became an
Olympic discipline in 1925.") Specifically, the participants were asked to grade their belief in the truth of each statement on a scale of one to seven. While the participants' confidence in the truth of the non-repeated statements remained steady, their confidence in the truth of the
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and that repetitively hearing that a certain statement is wrong can paradoxically cause it to feel right. Researchers observed the illusory truth effect's impact even on participants who knew the correct answer to begin with but were persuaded to believe otherwise through the repetition of a
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is assessed, people rely on whether the information is in line with their understanding or if it feels familiar. The first condition is logical, as people compare new information with what they already know to be true. Repetition makes statements easier to process relative to new, unrepeated
118:
repeated statements increased from the first to the second and second to third sessions, with an average score for those items rising from 4.2 to 4.6 to 4.7. The conclusion made by the researchers was that repeating a statement makes it more likely to appear factual.
188:
A 2012 experiment by
Danielle C. Polage showed that some participants exposed to false news stories would go on to have false memories. The conclusion was that repetitive false claims increase believability and may also result in errors.
169:", described as a situation in which the recollection of confidence is skewed after the truth or falsity has been received. They have described the effect (which they call "the reiteration effect") as a subset of hindsight bias.
177:
In a 1979 study, participants were told that repeated statements were no more likely to be true than unrepeated ones. Despite this warning, the participants perceived repeated statements as being more true than unrepeated ones.
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In 1989, Hal R. Arkes, Catherine
Hackett, and Larry Boehm replicated the original study, with similar results showing that exposure to false information changes the perceived truthfulness and plausibility of that information.
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However, researchers discovered that familiarity can overpower rationality—so much so that repetitively hearing that a certain fact is wrong can paradoxically cause it to feel right.
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This assumption was challenged by the results of a 2015 study by Lisa K. Fazio, Nadia M. Brasier, B. Keith Payne, and
Elizabeth J. Marsh. Published in the
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Newman, Eryn J.; Sanson, Mevagh; Miller, Emily K.; Quigley-Mcbride, Adele; Foster, Jeffrey L.; Bernstein, Daniel M.; Garry, Maryanne (September 6, 2014).
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researchers' conclusion was that subjective, tangential properties such as ease of processing can matter when people evaluate sourced information.
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Ozubko, JD; Fugelsang, J (January 2011). "Remembering makes evidence compelling: retrieval from memory can give rise to the illusion of truth".
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A 1992 study by Ian
Maynard Begg, Ann Anas, and Suzanne Farinacci suggested that a statement will seem true if the information seems familiar.
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statements, leading people to believe that the repeated conclusion is more truthful. The illusory truth effect has also been linked to
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In a 2014 study, Eryn J. Newman, Mevagh Sanson, Emily K. Miller, Adele
Quigley-McBride, Jeffrey L. Foster, Daniel M. Bernstein, and
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After replicating these results in another experiment, Fazio and her team attributed this curious phenomenon to
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Gigerenzer, Gerd (1984). "External
Validity of Laboratory Experiments: The Frequency-Validity Relationship".
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where participants were asked to rate a series of trivia statements as true or false. On three occasions,
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to be correct after repeated exposure. This phenomenon was first identified in a 1977 study at
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The effect was first named and defined following the results in a study from 1977 at
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165:, and Ulrich Hoffrage linked the illusory truth effect to the phenomenon known as "
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Fazio, Lisa K.; Brashier, Nadia M.; Payne, B. Keith; Marsh, Elizabeth J. (2015).
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The illusory truth effect plays a significant role in fields such as
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393:"People with Easier to Pronounce Names Promote Truthiness of Claims"
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Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
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455:"Want to Make a Lie Seem True? Say It Again. And Again. And Again"
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Hertwig, Ralph; Gigerenzer, Gerd; Hoffrage, Ulrich (1997).
664:
640:"The science behind why fake news is so hard to wipe out"
525:"Making up History: False Memories of Fake News Stories"
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Hasher, Lynn; Goldstein, David; Toppino, Thomas (1977).
313:"The Truth Effect and Other Processing Fluency Miracles"
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795:"Frequency processing: A twenty-five year perspective"
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349:"Frequency and the conference of referential validity"
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487:"Alex Jones and the illusory truth effect, explained"
562:"Knowledge does not protect against illusory truth"
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797:. In Sedlmeier, Peter; Betsch, Tilmann (eds.).
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356:Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior
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65:In a 2015 study, researchers discovered that
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569:Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
16:Repeating a falsity increases believability
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667:"The reiteration effect in hindsight bias"
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646:from the original on April 20, 2021
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766:The American Journal of Psychology
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638:Resnick, Brian (October 5, 2017).
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143:Journal of Experimental Psychology
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825:"The Illusion of Truth - PsyBlog"
615:. Vox Populi News. Archived from
611:Nason, Brian (December 8, 2015).
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497:from the original on May 5, 2021
485:Resnick, Brian (June 17, 2017).
461:from the original on May 6, 2021
323:from the original on May 6, 2021
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161:In a 1997 study, Ralph Hertwig,
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529:Europe's Journal of Psychology
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41:) is the tendency to believe
418:10.1371/journal.pone.0088671
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683:10.1037/0033-295X.104.1.194
613:"The Illusory Truth Effect"
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130:Relation to other phenomena
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884:Psychological manipulation
523:Polage, Danielle (2012).
258:List of cognitive biases
27:illusion of truth effect
283:Source-monitoring error
319:. September 18, 2007.
889:Propaganda techniques
549:on December 31, 2016.
542:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.456
235:Firehose of falsehood
209:Argumentum ad nauseam
23:illusory truth effect
671:Psychological Review
619:on December 14, 2015
268:Mere-exposure effect
103:Villanova University
91:political propaganda
47:Villanova University
409:2014PLoSO...988671N
25:(also known as the
831:. December 8, 2010
801:. pp. 21–36.
699:on August 22, 2012
582:10.1037/xge0000098
244:processing fluency
151:processing fluency
135:Processing fluency
76:processing fluency
39:reiteration effect
240:Fluency heuristic
220:Confirmation bias
107:Temple University
51:Temple University
43:false information
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465:October 31,
111:Lynn Hasher
83:advertising
71:rationality
67:familiarity
848:Categories
295:References
288:Truthiness
115:Basketball
87:news media
869:Cognition
835:April 22,
457:. Wired.
37:, or the
748:22767092
740:21058878
644:Archived
591:26301795
495:Archived
459:Archived
437:24586368
397:PLOS ONE
321:Archived
249:Implicit
201:See also
829:PsyBlog
786:1422594
642:. Vox.
428:3935838
405:Bibcode
215:Big lie
53:. When
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782:JSTOR
744:S2CID
598:(PDF)
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55:truth
837:2016
811:ISBN
736:PMID
705:2016
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329:2016
251:and
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