New WP! The illusory truth effect (repetition -> belief) is core to psych of beliefs, & thought to be a deep bias impacting misinfo, persuasion & advertising Why would cognition include such a flaw? We argue it is a rational adaptation to high-quality info environments 🧵1/ - ThreadSky

rorchinik.bsky.social • 25 days ago

New WP!
The illusory truth effect (repetition -> belief) is core to psych of beliefs, & thought to be a deep bias impacting misinfo, persuasion & advertising

Why would cognition include such a flaw? We argue it is a rational adaptation to high-quality info environments 🧵1/

Comments

ocorneille.bsky.social•25 days ago

Congratulations to you and your co-authors on this formalization effort, and on a research including simulations, one experiment, and converging indicators.

Needless to say, I am pleased it supports an ecological approach to the truth effect.

Two quick additional comments as you welcomed them:

ocorneille.bsky.social•25 days ago

1. I believe that this recent research supports several of your points:

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2024-10444-001

ocorneille.bsky.social•25 days ago

2. Repetition can impact truth judgments for implausible statements, but it's not clear that it can do so to the point people come to see them as true. The truth threshold generally was not crossed in related studies either.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105052

ocorneille.bsky.social•25 days ago

Your paper is dense and I only skimmed through it. But it's definitely an interesting one. I'm looking forward to reading it in full, and more carefully !

rorchinik.bsky.social•24 days ago

Thanks, Olivier! Looking forward to any further feedback & thanks for the papers.

I really like the clickbait paper - will definitely engage with it in our paper! The 2nd was 1 of the papers that got me to start thinking about Bayesian explanations. I’ve really appreciated your work in the area.

ocorneille.bsky.social•24 days ago

Thanks for your kind words. And congrats again on a very impressive and promising work. Amazing that you led it as a PhD student !

Last year, I gave a talk at a small expert meeting titled: "Logic Unleashed: A Rational Reassessment of Evaluative Conditioning and the Truth Effect" ...

humblyalex.bsky.social•25 days ago

It's not just repetition. It's the unconscious presumption that many of one's beliefs validate their sense of intellect, moral standing, and level of wisdom/knowledge... all ways in which they justify their sense of self-worth and self-esteem within a zero-sum validation scarcity mindset...

humblyalex.bsky.social•25 days ago

...intertwining fallible beliefs with one's self-concept minus the practiced turned available path of least resistance coping mechanisms for losing pride, painful humble pie...

humblyalex.bsky.social•25 days ago

...and ability to turn it into a growth opportunity that allows skill to develop into Dunning-Kruger effect healthy self-skepticism via remembering one's own trial and error.

stephengadsby.bsky.social•24 days ago

Hi Reed, can you include a link to the paper in the thread?

rorchinik.bsky.social•23 days ago

Here it is: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/qvwdy_v2. Thanks for reading

rorchinik.bsky.social•25 days ago

Despite what it feels like, ppl consume mostly true info from credible sources (fig from @jennyallen.bsky.social ). Sources are usually good but sometimes err – friends lie, credible news sources retract.

In a formal model, we investigate what this implies for repeated info. 2/

rorchinik.bsky.social•25 days ago

Our model captures the informational value of repetition: When a source repeats a piece of info, it is less likely to have been sent by mistake. When the source is credible, repetition signals this info is more likely to be true. 3/

rorchinik.bsky.social•25 days ago

The model unifies 4 findings in the lit: a) baseline illusory truth, b) each additional repetition has a smaller effect on beliefs, c) repetition effects are larger for implausible items, d) novel items are believed less when repetition is common. More explanation in fig 4/

rorchinik.bsky.social•25 days ago

To test this prediction, ppl see 3 True & 3 False headlines repeated in 3 exposure phases + 1 judgment phase. Ppl randomized to a high-quality condition see many novel headlines that are largely true. Those in low-quality see mostly false. Feed quality -> source credibility. 5/

rorchinik.bsky.social•25 days ago

Is the effect of repetition moderated by source credibility? YES!

The effect of repetition is about ¼ the size in the low-quality condition. This moderation occurs for true and false items. 6/

rorchinik.bsky.social•25 days ago

While there is a diff by condition, the avg is + in low-quality. But, when we look at ind-level effects, most ppl in low-quality show NO illusory truth. We find frequent use of a new strategy in low-quality: decrease belief in repeated items. As ppl learn, they begin to adapt. 7/

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