Is Earth a Perfect Square? Repetition Increases the Perceived Truth of Highly Implausible Statements
(2022) GREPACO — Location: Louvain-la-Neuve (22.May.2023)
Files
Details
- Authors
- et. al.
- Abstract
- A single exposure to statements is typically enough to increase their perceived truth. This Truth-by-Repetition (TBR) effect has long been assumed to occur only with statements whose truthvalue is unknown to participants. Contrary to this hypothesis, recent research has found thatstatements contradicting participants' prior knowledge (as established from a first sample ofparticipants) show a TBR effect following their repetition (in a second, independent sample ofparticipants). As for now, however, attempts at finding a TBR effect for blatantly false (i.e.,highly implausible) statements have failed. Here, we reasoned that highly implausible statementssuch as Elephants run faster than cheetahs may show repetition effects, provided a sensitive truthmeasure is used and statements are repeated more than just once. In a preregistered experiment,participants judged on a 100-point scale the truth of highly implausible statements that wereeither new to them or had been presented five times before judgment. We observed an effect ofrepetition: repeated statements were judged more true than new ones, although all judgmentswere judged below the scale midpoint. Exploratory analyses additionally show that about half theparticipants showed no or even a reversed effect of repetition. The results provide the firstempirical evidence that repetition can increase perceived truth even for highly implausiblestatements, although not equally so for all participants and not to the point of making thestatements look true. Illusory truth, Repetition, Multiple exposures, Low plausibility
- Affiliations
Citations
Lacassagne, D., & et al. (2022). Is Earth a Perfect Square? Repetition Increases the Perceived Truth of Highly Implausible Statements. Cognition, 223(105052), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1016 (Original work published 2022)