Phenomenon Where You Repeat Events Over and Over Again

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• Published: 13 May 2021

The furnishings of repetition frequency on the illusory truth consequence

Cognitive Enquiry: Principles and Implications volume 6, Article number:38 (2021) Cite this article

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Abstract

Repeated data is often perceived as more truthful than new information. This finding is known as the illusory truth issue, and information technology is typically thought to occur because repetition increases processing fluency. Because fluency and truth are frequently correlated in the real globe, people acquire to apply processing fluency as a marker for truthfulness. Although the illusory truth upshot is a robust phenomenon, almost all studies examining it have used three or fewer repetitions. To address this limitation, nosotros conducted ii experiments using a larger number of repetitions. In Experiment i, nosotros showed participants trivia statements upward to ix times and in Experiment ii statements were shown up to 27 times. Later, participants rated the truthfulness of the previously seen statements and of new statements. In both experiments, we found that perceived truthfulness increased as the number of repetitions increased. Still, these truth rating increases were logarithmic in shape. The largest increment in perceived truth came from encountering a argument for the second time, and beyond this were incrementally smaller increases in perceived truth for each additional repetition. These findings add to our theoretical understanding of the illusory truth effect and have applications for advertising, politics, and the propagation of "faux news."

Significance statement

Repetition can affect beliefs about truth. People tend to perceive claims as truer if they have been exposed to them before. This is known every bit the illusory truth effect, and information technology helps explicate why advertisements and propaganda work, and also why people believe fake news to be true. Although a large number of studies have shown that the illusory truth effect occurs, very picayune research has used more than three repetitions. However, in the real world, claims are often encountered at much college repetition rates. The goal of the current research was to examine how a larger number of repeated exposures affects our judgments of truth. To practise so, we conducted 2 experiments. In each experiment, we asked participants to read trivia statements such equally "The gestation period of a giraffe is 425 days". In Experiment 1, the trivia statements were shown either i, 3, 5, seven, or 9 times. In Experiment ii, the trivia statements were shown either 1, 9, 18, or 27 times. 1 week later, we showed participants these aforementioned facts forth with new facts and asked them to rate their truthfulness. In both experiments, nosotros plant that the more ofttimes that participants had previously encountered the trivia statement, the more than truthful they rated it to be, but the largest increases in perceived truth occurred when people encountered a statement for the 2nd time. Together these experiments show the powerful effect of simple repetition in affecting our judgments of truth.

The illusory truth effect

Not everything that we believe is truthful. For example, according to a recent survey of teachers in United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and The Netherlands, 48 pct and 46 percentage, respectively, falsely believed that people only use ten percentage of their brains (Dekker et al. 2012; run into also van Dijk and Lane 2020). Problematically, equally a upshot of this simulated belief, some people likewise have the misperception that "a little brain impairment" is unimportant (Guilmette and Paglia 2004).

More recently, there has been concern about the consequences of peoples' behavior in misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus affliction (COVID-19) pandemic. In response to this wellness crisis, false information has been widely circulated. In fact, during the early on stages of the outbreak, an analysis of posts to the social media platform Twitter showed that nigh a quarter of all COVID-nineteen tweets contained misinformation (Kouzy et al. 2020). As i concrete example, during the early days of outbreak, the Belgian paper Het Laastste Nieuws published an article suggesting that 5G, the cellular communication standard, might be linked to the development of COVID-xix. Although this thought is not supported by science, this claim has since been repeated multiple times in other forums (Ahmed et al. 2020), and a survey in the jump of 2020, showed that 5 percent of Uk residents believed that the symptoms of COVID-19 were linked to 5G mobile network radiation (Allington et al. 2020). Problematically, belief in this conspiracy theory was besides associated with reduced health-protective behaviors (Allington et al. 2020), and since the initial newspaper article was published, there have been 77 reported attacks on cellular towers in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and over 40 attacks on cellular repair workers (Reichert 2020).

Why exercise beliefs in myths, misinformation and fake news persist, despite having been clearly disproven? One contributing gene is likely the fact that people accept been exposed to this data repeatedly. Consistent with this thought, research has shown that repeated information is perceived as more truthful than new information. This finding is known as the illusory truth effect (for a review, see Brashier and Marsh 2020) and was beginning reported past Hasher et al. (1977). In this experiment, participants were exposed to a list of plausible statements, some of which were truthful (e.g., Lithium is the lightest of all metals) and some of which were false (due east.m., The capybara is the largest of the marsupials). Participants were asked to estimate the truthfulness of each statement. This process was then repeated during a second and third session. However, during these subsequent sessions, one-half of the statements had been previously encountered during the previous session(s), while the other half had not been encountered earlier. Results showed that with each successive session, participants rated the repeated statements as more truthful than they had in the previous session. Furthermore, these repetition-related increases in perceived truth did not vary based upon the objective truth of the statements.

The illusory truth effect, which is sometimes also referred to as the repetition truth effect, has now been replicated many times, and a meta-analysis showed that when comparing verbatim repetitions to novel information it is a medium event size (d = 0.53; Dechêne et al. 2010). The illusory truth consequence has also been demonstrated using a variety of dissimilar stimuli, including trivia statements (due east.g., Salary 1979), fake news headlines (Pennycook et al. 2018), product claims (Johar and Roggeveen 2007), opinion statements (Arkes et al. 1989), rumors (DiFonzo et al. 2016), and misinformation about observed events (Zaragoza and Mitchell 1996). The outcome occurs regardless of whether the time between the repetitions is minutes (Arkes et al. 1989), weeks (Hasher et al. 1977), or even months apart (Brown and Nix 1996). Furthermore, the effect does non depend upon the source of the statements (Begg et al. 1992) and occurs fifty-fifty when participants are explicitly told that the source of the statements is unreliable (Henkel and Mattson 2011) or when the initial statement had a qualifier that bandage dubiety on the statement'due south validity (Stanley et al. 2019). Further evidence of the robustness of this effect comes from studies showing that the illusory truth effect even occurs when the repeated statements are highly implausible (e.g., The earth is a perfect foursquare; Fazio et al. 2019) or when the repeated statements directly contradict participants' prior knowledge (eastward.g., The fastest land animal is the leopard; Fazio et al. 2015).

Explanations of the illusory truth effect

A multifariousness of different psychological explanations have been proposed to explicate why repetition increases perceived truth (for a review, see Unkelbach et al. 2019). Even so, the near commonly cited caption is the processing fluency business relationship. Processing fluency refers to the metacognitive experience of ease or difficulty that accompanies a mental process (run into Alter and Oppenheimer 2009). According to the processing fluency account, when information is repeated, it is candy more fluently and is consequently perceived to be more truthful (e.g., Unkelbach 2007; Unkelbach and Stahl 2009). This judgment occurs because we have learned over fourth dimension that fluency (i.due east., a proximal cue) is predictive of truthfulness (i.e., a more than distal belongings that is non readily observable; Unkelbach and Greifeneder 2013). Back up for the processing fluency account comes from other research showing that illusions of truth tin can occur even without repetition, such that people rate information presented in like shooting fish in a barrel-to-read font (Reber and Schwarz 1999) or easy-to-sympathise speech (Lev-Ari and Keysar 2010) equally being more truthful than information presented in a less perceptually fluent format.

A further explanation of why repetition increases processing fluency comes from Unkelbach and Rom'south (2017) referential theory of truth. In brief, this theory begins by noting that within a statement, the composite elements have preexisting degrees of semantic association with one another. Sometime references are already coherently linked with i another (due east.g., "student" and "teacher"), simply other times they are non (e.grand., "sailor" and "secretary"). However, when a statement is repeated, this repetition serves to increase the coherence between the blended reference elements. This in plow results in the argument being candy more fluently and therefore perceived as more than true. Thus, according to referential theory, processing fluency can be seen as an outcome of a retentivity network with coherent composite references (for further word, see Unkelbach et al. 2019).

When contemplating how repetition will bear upon memory coherence and/or processing fluency, it is also important to consider habituation effects. Habituation is a class of learning that occurs across species, and it refers to the fact that as the number of repetitions of a given stimulus increases in that location are exponential decreases in the frequency of the associated behavioral responses (for a review encounter Rankin et al. 2009). Habituation also occurs at the neural level in the form of repetition suppression furnishings. As the number of repetitions of a given stimulus increases, there are exponential decreases in the firing rates of the neurons (for a review see Grill-Spector et al. 2006). Repetition suppression effects are sometimes interpreted equally an index of more fluent processing of semantic representations (e.thou., Hasson et al. 2006; Henson 2003; Henson et al. 2002), which suggests that every bit the number of repetitions increases, the corresponding increases in processing fluency go incrementally smaller. This finding in turn has of import implications for the perceived truth of these statements: Equally the number of repetitions of a statement increases, there should as well be incrementally smaller increases in the perceived truth of that argument. The overarching goal of the current inquiry was to exam this hypothesis.

Number of repetitions and perceived truth

Although a large body of enquiry has shown that repeated information is perceived as more than truthful than new information, to our knowledge only iv prior studies have used more than iii repetitions, and their conclusions take been mixed. Each of these prior studies is described in more detail below.

In a start study by Arkes et al. (1991, Experiment 3), participants were asked to judge the perceived truthfulness of statements across six different study sessions. Equally expected, results showed that perceived truthfulness was higher in the second session as compared to the kickoff session. However, pairwise comparisons of the ratings given in the subsequent adjacent written report sessions were not statistically significant. Based upon this, Arkes et al. (1991) concluded that further repetitions do non atomic number 82 to further increases in perceived truthfulness.

However, other enquiry has suggested that larger increases in the number of repetitions tin still lead to increases in perceived truthfulness. In a report past Koch and Zerback (2013), participants were presented with the single statement "microcredits reduced poverty in emerging nations" either i, 3, 5, or 7 times. These repetitions were embedded in a paper article describing an interview with the founder of the microcredit loan system. Structural equation modeling suggested that this statement was perceived as more truthful the more often that information technology was presented. However, this was obscured by the fact that in this context, repetition of this statement was also perceived to be a persuasion endeavour, which in turn led to reactance and reduced belief in the statement's truth.

Finally, two other studies suggest that there may be a logarithmic human relationship between number of repetitions and perceived truth. First, Hawkins et al. (2001) observed increases in truth ratings upward to 4 repetitions, merely each increase was diminished from the terminal. Likewise, using a greater number of repetitions, DiFonzo et al. (2016) observed increases in truth ratings upwards to 6 repetitions (Experiments i and 2) and 9 repetitions (Experiment 3), with each repetition-related increase again being macerated from the last. However, conclusions from this study should exist interpreted charily as only one statement was used per repetition status, which may have reduced the reliability of the measure. Furthermore, these statements were presented as rumors within a narrative story, which could potentially accept been perceived as a persuasion tactic, and hence reduced (rather than increased) perceived truth (Koch and Zerback 2013).

Thus, although we predict that increases in the number of repetitions should atomic number 82 to logarithmic increases in perceived truthfulness, previous research examining this question has yielded contradictory conclusions, and the only two studies that take used more than six repetitions presented the information in a narrative context (DiFonzo et al. 2016; Koch and Zerback 2013). To farther examine this question, we conducted two experiments that varied in the number of repetitions. In Experiment 1, the trivia statements were shown up to 9 times, whereas in Experiment 2, the trivia statements were shown up to 27 times. Inside each experiment, we first tested for the presence of the illusory truth effect (i.e., are repeated statements perceived as more true than new statements?). We then tested our prediction that there is a logarithmic (as opposed to linear) relationship between repetition frequency and truth ratings.

Experiment 1

Power analysis and participants

An a priori power analysis using G*Power 3.1 that specified a matched-pair t test with an alpha level of 0.05, reported a minimum of 40 participants would be required to achieve 90% power to find a medium-to-big effect of d = 0.53, which is the average effect size of the illusory truth effect reported in a prior meta-assay (Dechêne et al. 2010). To account for attrition betwixt the two study sessions (run into Procedure department) and data exclusions, nosotros aimed to take 100 participants complete Session ane. Participants were recruited using Amazon Mechanical Turk through the Turk Prime platform (www.cloudresearch.com; Litman et al. 2017). There were 153 individuals who consented to participate, but just 95 completed Session 1. Ane week later, 78 of these participants returned, merely only 66 fully completed Session two. Of these participants, we and so excluded the 10 participants who failed 1 or more than of the included attention checks (see Procedure section). This left a final sample size of 51 in the analyses reported below.

Participants were required to exist residents of the The states and to be at to the lowest degree 18 years of age. The final sample (Thou _age = 33.27, SD = 7.81, range 20–55) consisted of 27 men and 24 women. They self-identified their race and ethnicity equally follows: 39 identified equally White or Caucasian, 9 as Black or African American, and 3 as Hispanic. Participants were too asked about their highest obtained level of education: 1 reported having a Ph.D., One thousand.D., or J.D., four reported having a Master's degree, xix reported having a iv-year college Bachelor's degree, six reported having a 2-year higher caste, xiv reported having some college experience, and vii reported having a high school diploma or equivalent.

Materials and design

Stimuli consisted of a list of 100 trivia statements. Of these, 66 statements were adaptations of the questions from Nelson and Narens norms (1980) that were previously used by both Mutter et al. (1995) and by Henkel and Mattson (2011). Previous norming of this prepare of statements showed that they were relatively unknown, but that people perceived them as plausible (Complain et al. 1995). Boosted 34 trivia statements were institute via online resource. These supplemental trivia statements were not normed, simply were judged past the research squad to also exist plausible, only relatively unknown (eastward.g., The attachment was invented in Norway). Thus, the truthfulness of the statements used in the current research was ambiguous, which should increase the magnitude of the illusory truth effect (Fazio et al. 2019).

Whereas some prior studies have included both true and imitation statements, research has shown that repetition exerts equivalent increases in the perceived truth of previously unknown true and previously unknown false statements (eastward.m., Hasher et al. 1977; Pennycook et al. 2018, Experiment two), and repetition even increases the perceived truth of false statements that direct contradict prior cognition (Fazio and Sherry 2020; Fazio et al. 2015). Given that the truth value of our called statements was expected to be largely unknown to participants, and hence the veracity of the statements should non affect the repetition-related increases in perceived truth, nosotros opted to merely apply factually accurate statements. In improver, because it tin be hard to reduce people's belief that previously encountered misinformation is true (for a review run into Lewandowsky et al. 2012), our use of simply factually authentic statements likewise ensured that participants did develop false beliefs as a result of participation in this written report.

For counterbalancing purposes, the 100 trivia statements were divided into 10 sets of x statements. In doing then, we ensured that statements pertaining to particular categories (e.m., geography facts) were distributed across the x sets. For each participant, 5 sets of facts were seen during Session 1 and corresponded to the five repetition conditions (1, three, v, vii, and nine). During the Session 2 truth ratings (run across Procedure section), all 10 sets of facts were shown: 5 sets of facts were new items that did non previously appear during Session 1 and the other five sets of facts were previously seen during Session i. Counterbalancing was used such that across all participants, each gear up of facts appeared as oftentimes every bit a repeated and new item, and when information technology was a repeated item, information technology appeared every bit frequently across the five repetition weather condition. This resulted in x different counterbalanced versions of the experiment. ^{Footnote 1}

Procedure

All procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Lath (IRB) at Georgia State University (protocol H19217). Participation in this experiment consisted of 2 dissever sessions, separated past one week. Each session was completed online, using either a computer or a mobile device.

Session 1 During Session 1, participants were randomly assigned to ane of ten versions of the experiment, which represented the counterbalancing of specific trivia statements across repetition type and session (encounter Materials and Design section). Participants then provided consent and completed a demographics questionnaire. Participants side by side saw a series of trivia statements and rated how interesting they institute each argument. They were instructed that some trivia statements would be shown more than than once; nonetheless, for each statement they should rate how interesting they institute it at that very moment. The participants then saw the trivia statements one at a fourth dimension in a random society. Each trial consisted of the presentation of the trivia statement for four due south. Subsequently this, the statement disappeared from view and participants were asked to rate how interesting the argument was on a scale of 1 (not interesting) to 6 (very interesting). These ratings were self-paced.

Over the form of this Session 1 job, participants saw l statements. Each argument was presented either i, iii, five, vii, or nine time(due south) and in full there were 10 statements in each repetition condition. This made for 250 trials. Additionally, iii attention check trials were likewise included. These attention check trials just stated: Delight select X for the next rating, with X being either the answer selection of 1, 2, or 3. The order of the 253 trials was randomized (although the precise randomization order that was used for each participant was not recorded). On average, participants spent 54.87 min completing the Session ane tasks and were compensated $4.50 for their participation.

Session two Consequent with previous research (east.1000., Arkes 1989; Boehm 1994; Fazio et al. 2015), 1 week later participants were invited to complete a second study session. During Session two, participants were shown our entire list of 100 statements. Of these, 50 had been previously seen during Session 1 and fifty were new statements. We chose to use a mixed-list of repeated and new facts as this should create variability in the fluency of the statements, which should increment the likelihood of observing illusory truth effects (e.g., Dechene et al. 2009; Garcia-Marques et al. 2019). The 100 statements were presented in a random gild, one at a time, and participants were asked to rate how truthful they found each statement on a scale of 1 (not truthful) to vi (very truthful). Participants were instructed that we were interested in their ain perceptions well-nigh the truthfulness of the statements, and were told non to look upwards whatsoever of the statements while completing the task. During Session 2, two attention check trials, similar to those used in Session 1, were also included. On average, participants spent 13.78 min completing the Session 2 tasks and were compensated $3.50 for their participation.

Results

We first evaluated whether or not we replicated the illusory truth event. Every bit in prior enquiry, in a matched-pair t exam, we constitute that repeated statements elicited higher truth ratings (M = iv.49, SD = 0.sixty; collapsing across repetition weather) compared to the never-before-seen statements (M = iii.76, SD = 0.67), t(fifty) = seven.xvi, p < 0.001, d = one.00. ^{Footnote two}

Nosotros adjacent evaluated our hypothesis that there would exist a logarithmic (every bit opposed to linear) relationship between the number of times a statement was repeated during Session 1 and perceptions of truth during Session 2. To do so, for each participant we calculated the correlation coefficient between their Session 2 truth ratings and the number of Session 1 repetitions (0, one, 3, 5, 7, 9), and also between their Session 2 truth ratings and the log of the number of Session i repetitions (for a similar procedure, see Social club et al. 2014). In both cases, we added a constant of 1 to the number of Session one repetitions, to business relationship for the fact that the log of 0 is undefined. ^{Footnote 3} On average, truth ratings had a moderate-to-large correlation with the linear scaling of the Session 1 repetitions (mean r = 0.46, SD = 0.43; range of rdue south = -0.72 to 0.93; correlations were greater than zero for 88% of participants). Truth ratings also had a big correlation with the logarithmic scaling of the Session 1 repetitions (mean r = 0.52, SD = 0.44, range of rs = -0.57 to 0.98; correlations were greater than aught for 84% of participants). However, a matched pair t-test showed that the magnitude of the correlation was significantly greater when using the logarithmic calibration, as compared to the linear scale, t(l) = 4.83, p < 0.001, d = 0.67 (encounter Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

Mean Truth Ratings as a Function of Number of Repetitions in Experiment 1 and Experiment two

Full size paradigm

Every bit shown in Table 1, follow-up Bonferroni-adjusted pairwise comparisons showed that there were big differences in perceived truth between the never-before-seen items and the previously seen items. The new statements were rated equally significantly less truthful than statements in the 1, iii, v, 7, and nine repetition conditions (i.eastward., there was an illusory truth issue). However, in that location were fewer significant differences between items from the other repetition conditions. In fact, the only other pregnant pairwise comparison was between statements in the one and nine repetition atmospheric condition.

Table one Experiment 1 truth ratings as a role of repetition condition and the pairwise comparing upshot sizes between repetition conditions

Full size table

Experiment 2

Although Experiment 1 showed that increased repetitions were associated with logarithmic increases in truth ratings, one limitation of this written report is that our maximum number of repetitions was 9. To address this, in Experiment 2 we repeated the facts either ane, 9, eighteen, or 27 times. We chose intervals of 9 repetitions considering the Experiment 1 results showed a significant difference in the perceived truthfulness of items previously presented in one case versus nine times.

In Experiment 2, we too limited our sample to younger adults, aged 18 to 35. Prior inquiry has shown that older adults demonstrate greater illusory truth effects than younger adults (Law et al. 1998). Replicating this, in Experiment 1 nosotros also found that the difference in truth ratings between old and new items was larger with increasing age, F(1, 49) = 7.05, p = 0.011, η _p ^two  = 0.13. Although none of the Experiment 1 conclusions change when including age every bit a gene (i.e., regardless of whether participants were relatively older or relatively younger, in Experiment 1 the logarithmic scale was more strongly related to truth ratings than the linear calibration), to reduce variability in illusory truth effects, in Experiment 2 we limited our sample to individuals aged 18 to 35.

Participants

Using the aforementioned recruitment strategies as in Experiment 1, in that location were 151 individuals consented to participate in Experiment ii, but only 100 completed Session 1. Ane week later, 70 of these participants returned, merely only 64 fully completed Session 2. Every bit in Experiment i, we then excluded the 7 participants who failed one or more of the included attention checks (run into Procedure department). This left a final sample size of 57 in the analyses reported beneath.

Participants were required to exist residents of the United states of america, anile xviii to 35. Inside the last sample, participants were on average 29.46 years old (SD = 3.49, range 21–35). Although all participants reported their historic period, due to experimenter error we did not assess gender, racial identity, or educational attainment in all eight of the counterbalanced versions of the experiment (run across Materials and Design section). Gender was merely assessed in two versions: Of participants asked this question there were 8 men and 8 women. Race was assessed in seven versions, with these participants cocky-identifying every bit follows: 38 equally White or Caucasian, 5 as Black or African American, iii as Asian, 1 as American Indian or Alaska Native, 1 as Biracial, and 2 did not identify with any of the provided racial identity choices. Educational attainment was only assessed in ii versions: Of participants asked this question 6 reported having a iv-yr college Bachelor's degree, 2 reported having a ii-yr higher degree, 3 reported having some higher experience, 5 reported having a high schoolhouse diploma or equivalent, and 1 reported having some high school.

Materials and pattern

The list of 100 statements used in Experiment i was pared down to 64 statements. This was done pseudorandomly with the constraint that we maintained diversity in the broad categories of trivia facts represented. For instance, we ensured that nosotros were not discarding all of the statements related to animals or all of the statements related to geography. The statements were then divided into 8 sets of eight statements. For each participant, four sets were used during Session i and corresponded to the four repetition types (i, ix, xviii, and 27). The other four sets were used every bit new items during Session 2. Counterbalancing was used such that across participants, each set appeared as often as a repeated or new items, and when information technology appeared as a repeated item, appeared equally ofttimes across the four repetition types. This resulted in eight different counterbalanced versions of the experiment.

Procedure

The procedure for Experiment 2 was canonical by the IRB at Georgia Country University (protocol H19217) and was identical to Experiment 1 with the following exceptions. First, the ratings during Session 1 were non cocky-paced. In order to standardize the corporeality of fourth dimension spent viewing the statements, participants were given four due south to view each fact, followed by 4 s to rate their electric current interest in the fact.

Second, equally noted above (meet Materials and Design), during Session 1 of Experiment 2 the statements were presented either 1, ix, 18, or 27 time(s). Equally at that place were 8 statements in each repetition status, this fabricated for 440 critical trials. With the add-on of 3 attention trials, the total number of trials was 443 (every bit opposed to 253 in Experiment 1).

3rd, at the cease of Session ii nosotros also asked participants whether they had looked up, or discussed with others, any of the Session i facts during the prior calendar week. Just 3 participants reported having done and so, and these participants further reported that this afflicted two or fewer of the Session ane facts. Excluding these participants did not change any of the reported patterns of results, and hence, they were retained in the subsequent analyses.

On average, participants spent 68 min completing Session i and 13.84 min completing Session 2 and compensated $7.25 and $3.75, respectively. ^{Footnote 4}

Results

Nosotros first tested for the illusory truth effect using a matched-pairs t test. Results showed that the repeated statements (M = 4.66, SD = 0.86; collapsing beyond repetition conditions) elicited college truth ratings compared to never-before-seen statements (Thou = three.64, SD = 0.65), t(56) = 8.22, p < 0.001, d = ane.09.

We next tested our hypothesis that there would be a logarithmic (as opposed to linear) relationship betwixt the number of times a argument was repeated during Session 1 and perceptions of truth during Session 2. Equally in Experiment 1, we correlated each participants' average truth ratings during Session 2 with both the number of Session i repetitions (0, 1, nine, 18, 27), besides as with the log of the number of Session i repetitions. In both cases, we added a constant of 1 to the number of Session i repetitions, to business relationship for the fact that the log of 0 is undefined. Every bit in Experiment one, truth ratings tended to have a moderate-to-large correlation with the linear scaling of the Session one repetitions (hateful r = 0.47, SD = 0.43; range of rs = -0.84 to 0.95; correlations were greater than naught for 82% of participants). Truth ratings too tended to have a moderate-to-large correlation with the logarithmic scaling of the Session 1 repetitions (hateful r = 0.56, SD = 0.44, range of rdue south = -0.82 to 0.99; correlations were greater than naught for 86% of participants). However, a matched-pair t test showed that the showed that magnitude of the correlation was significantly greater when using the logarithmic scale, as compared to the linear scale, t(56) = 8.22, p < 0.001, d = 0.63 (encounter Fig. one)

As shown in Table ii, this determination was further supported by follow-upwards Bonferroni-adapted pairwise comparisons. Here, nosotros plant that new statements were rated as less truthful than those previously seen ane, 9, xviii, or 27 times. Even so, there were very few statistically significant differences between items from the other repetition conditions. Statements in the 1 repetition condition were rated significantly less truthful than statements in the 9, eighteen, and 27 repetition conditions. However, no other comparisons between repetition conditions were found to be statistically significant.

Table two Experiment ii truth ratings as a function of repetition status and the pairwise comparison result sizes between repetition conditions

Full size table

Discussion

The goal of this research was to test the hypothesis that the more frequently information is encountered, the more than truthful that information is perceived to exist, and that this relationship is logarithmic in nature. To test this, we asked participants to read trivia statements, which were repeated up to 9 times in Experiment 1 and up to 27 times in Experiment ii. One week later, participants saw these aforementioned trivia statements alongside the new statements and were asked to judge the truthfulness of each statement. As expected, in both experiments nosotros replicated the illusory truth effect such that repeated statements were perceived as more truthful than new statements. We also establish that perceived truthfulness increased as the number of repetitions increased, and in line with our predictions, these increases were logarithmic in nature. In both experiments, the largest increases in perceived truth came from encountering a statement for the 2d time. However, across this, at that place were progressively smaller increases in perceived truth for each boosted repetition, which were not statistically significant across 9 repetitions.

These findings support the predictions based upon both the processing fluency account and also based upon the referential theory of truth. They are too consistent with research past Hawkins et al. (2001) who found that repeating information up to 4 times results in progressively smaller increases in truth ratings. Besides, DiFonzo et al. (2016) establish a logarithmic relationship, such that repeating information up to nine times also results in progressively smaller increases in truth ratings. Nosotros replicate their findings using a larger number of items outside of a narrative context (Experiment 1) and extend their results by showing that this design continues upwards to at to the lowest degree 27 repetitions (Experiment 2).

In addition, our results—but not our conclusions—are also consequent with those reported by Arkes et al. (1991, Experiment 3). As in their study, nosotros found that even though information shown for the second time was rated as significantly more true than new information, pairwise comparisons of truth ratings for the subsequent repetition conditions were rarely statistically significant. For instance, in our Experiment ane, the truth ratings for the statements presented 3 times did not significantly differ from the truth ratings for the statements presented 5 times (come across Tables 1, ii). Based upon similar null results, Arkes et al. (1991) concluded that while a kickoff repetition increases perceived truth, subsequent repetitions exercise not. In dissimilarity, we conclude that while a offset repetition produces the largest increase in perceived truth, subsequent repetitions produce subsequent increases in truth that are incrementally macerated in size. As a effect, statistically pregnant increases in perceived truth may only occur after a large number of additional repetitions. Furthermore, because a logarithmic function has no asymptote, theoretically, it stands to reason that repetitions will arm-twist college and higher truth ratings indefinitely. Nonetheless, at some signal these incremental increases in perceived truth will get and so pocket-size in magnitude that they no longer have practical value.

Understanding the applied value of increased repetitions is important because the illusory truth effect affects important daily life decisions (for further word, encounter Unkelbach et al. 2019) and our findings are highly relevant within the realms of politics and "imitation news." For example, using actual fake-news headlines from the 2016 US presidential ballot, Pennycook et al. (2018) found that the more ofttimes that participants were exposed to these headlines, the more likely they were to believe them to be true. This occurred even when the headlines were conspicuously tagged as being fake facts, and when their content was inconsistent with the participants' own political ideology. Although this demonstrates that a unmarried encounter with a fake news story will make it seem more than truthful, in our daily lives nosotros sometimes encounter imitation information repeatedly. For case, during his 2016 campaign to be elected as President of the USA, Donald Trump stated 86 times that the structure of a wall betwixt the Usa and Mexico had already begun (see Murray et al. 2020). Although this was simulated, our results suggest that each time this claim was repeated, its perceived truthfulness incrementally increased.

These results are as well relevant for understanding the public'due south response to the COVID-19 pandemic: Our results propose that the more oftentimes messages almost COVID-nineteen are repeated, the more truthful they will be perceived. The consequences of this can exist positive or negative, depending upon the validity of the messages. An example of this comes from Bursztyn, Rao, Roth, and Yanagizawa-Drott's (2020) analyses of the relationship betwixt viewers' health outcomes and the coverage of COVID-19 they had seen on Hannity and Tucker Carlson Tonight. Although these cable news shows are both broadcast on Flim-flam News, commencement in early on Feb of 2020, Carlson warned viewers that COVID-nineteen might pose a serious health threat to the United states. In contrast, Hannity originally claimed that COVID-19 was no different than the flu and was being used by Democrats equally a political weapon. Hannity only began to describe COVID-19 every bit a threat in mid-March of 2020. Being exposed to these repeated letters was associated with adverse wellness outcomes for the Hannity viewers. In a survey of Fox News viewers aged 55 of older in April 2020, a one standard deviation higher viewership of Hannity (relative to Carlson) was associated with 33% more than COVID-19 cases on March 14th, and 34% more COVID-nineteen deaths on April 4th. Presumably this occurred because the messages virtually COVID-19 had been repeatedly presented on the news, and were believed past the viewers. This in turn may have had a ripple event, equally people are likewise more likely to share with others information that they take repeatedly encountered (Effron and Raj 2020).

A concluding domain for which the current experiments' findings are relevant is advertising. Prior research has shown that repeated advertisements are associated with people perceiving the advertised production every bit higher in quality (Moorthy and Hawkins 2005), and our results propose that it may also increase perceived truth of the advert message. However, one cistron that frequently moderates ad repetition effects is the number of advertisements (e.g., Burton et al. 2019; Kohli et al. 2005). For instance, results of a meta-assay suggest that there are increases in positive attitudes with up to 10 exposures of an advertisement, after which there are decreases in positive attitudes (Schmidt and Eisend 2015). The terms "clothing-in" and "wearable-out" are used to depict these effects. An advertizement is "worn in" when the repetition initially garners a positive outcome and is "worn out" when the repetition produces no effect or fifty-fifty a negative one (Pechmann and Stewart 1988).

Consistent with this idea, information from Experiment 2 suggest that repetition-related increases in perceived truth may be "worn out" after 9 repetitions. Equally shown in Fig. one, after 9 repetitions the truth ratings appear to arroyo an asymptote, and after this point the practical value of further repetitions may be limited. Although nosotros did not observe whatever show that repetitions across this negatively affect perceived truth, it is possible that an inverse U-shape may have occurred if we had used a persuasion context (such as would occur during advertisement). This is consistent with prior research from Koch and Zerback (2013). Equally previously described, participants in this written report read a newspaper interview with the founder of microcredit loans. Embedded in this interview was the statement "microcredits reduced poverty in emerging nations," which was repeated either one, iii, five, or seven times. Results from a structural equation model suggested that increased repetitions lead to increased belief that microcredit loans decrease poverty in emerging nations. Still, increased repetitions likewise led participants to trust the communicator less, and to believe that the message was a persuasion attempt. Every bit a result, participants who heard statements multiple times interpreted the reason for those repetitions equally an intent to persuade them, and demonstrated reactance by rating the statement lower in truthfulness.

It is also possible that we did not observe an inverse U-shaped curve because nosotros did not include a sufficient number of repetitions. Back up for this possibility comes from research on the mere-exposure effect. This is the finding that repeated exposure to an initially neutral and unfamiliar stimulus results in greater liking of that stimulus (Zajonc 1968), and this is thought to reflect repetition-related increases processing fluency (Reber and Schwarz 2001; Reber et al. 1998). However, a meta-analysis shows that the relationship between repetition and liking resembles an inverted U-shaped bend. More specifically, liking continues to increase upwards to about 62 repetitions, but after this betoken additional repetitions lead to declines in liking (Montoya et al. 2017; see also Bornstein and D'Agostino 1992). If a peak in perceived truth occurs afterward a like number of repetitions, the current experiments would non have observed information technology. Statements were repeated a maximum of 9 times in Experiment 1 and 27 times in Experiment 2. Thus, future research examining the human relationship between repetition and perceived truth should include an even greater number of repetitions.

Future studies should also address the limitations that were nowadays in these experiments. The first being that we did not assess whether or not whatsoever of the statements included were previously known to each participant. While we could take assessed pre-experimental knowledge of the facts, information technology has been shown that prior knowledge does not shield one from the illusory truth result (Fazio et al. 2015). It is therefore likely that the patterns reported here would have emerged even for misinformation or fake news that contradicted prior knowledge.

A second limitation has to do with the presentation and length of the study sessions. In these studies, participants read trivia statements in blackness text on a white background for over an hour on their phones or computers. This may accept contributed to mind-wandering and boredom, and fifty-fifty though all participants included in analyses passed our attention checks, they may not have given the statements their total attention. This reduced attentiveness may actually have maximized the illusory truth effects that were observed. For instance, Hawkins and Hoch (1992) plant what they termed "low-involvement" learning was a key factor to observing the illusory truth effect. When participants were exposed to advertising statements, those who engaged in the "depression-interest" learning task (i.due east., those who were asked to rate the statements based on how easy they were to sympathize) experienced stronger subsequent illusory truth effects than those in the "high-interest" learning task (i.e., those who were asked to rate statements based on how truthful they were). Information technology appears that deeper appointment while processing the statement can protect one from repetition-based illusory truth effects. Consistent with this, Brashier et al. (2020) recently found that participants who were actively involved in "fact-checking" the presented statements showed a reduced illusory truth effect (at least when they had the requisite knowledge to perform the task).

A concluding limitation is that nosotros did not examine the role of repetition spacing in modulating the magnitude of the illusory truth effect. In the current experiments, the trivia facts (and their repetitions) were presented in a random order for each participant during the outset study session, but unfortunately these randomization orders were non recorded. Given prior research showing that neural repetition suppression is reduced for spaced, as compared to massed, repetitions (e.g., Xue et al. 2011), information technology is reasonable to hypothesize that illusory truth effects should also be greater post-obit spaced, equally compared to massed, repetitions. Preliminary results from our laboratory support this hypothesis (Barber et al. 2020), and ongoing enquiry is now examining the combined influence of the number of repetitions and the spacing of those repetitions in affecting perceived truth.

In summary, our results suggest that the more oftentimes information is repeated, the more likely it is to exist believed. This is important since nosotros often encounter information whose validity is unknown. Although assertive repeated information to be true is evolutionarily efficient in a context where nearly of the information encountered is correct, it tin can exist detrimental to believe information that is wrong. Sometimes these consequences can be trite: If you are repeatedly shown the false statement "Salty h2o boils faster," you may come to believe this to be true. However, acting on this false belief will only slightly elongate your cooking time. In dissimilarity, other times the consequences can be life-threatening: If you are repeatedly told that "COVID-19 is no more unsafe than the mutual cold," y'all may come to believe this to exist truthful, but acting on this imitation belief may increase your adventure of infection and death. Although our studies did not use fake news, conspiracy theories, or misinformation for stimuli, our results shed calorie-free on the machinery underlying illusory truth effects, and propose that repeated exposures likely lead to increased belief. In addition, our results suggest that the largest increases in perceived truth come from hearing information a second fourth dimension. Going beyond this, subsequent repetitions lead to progressively smaller increases in perceived truth. However, after 9 repetitions these increases may no longer exist practically meaningful.

Availability of information and materials

Data and study materials are available from the corresponding author upon asking.

Notes

1. Due to compunction and information exclusions, the counterbalanced versions of the statements were not evenly represented in the terminal samples of Experiment 1 or Experiment ii. All the same, when including weigh version number every bit a gene in analyses, at that place were no chief effects or interactions to report. In add-on, the sets of facts did not significantly differ in the truth ratings they received the first time they were shown. Counterbalance version will therefore not exist discussed further.

3. As a concrete example, assume that a participant's average truth rating for the new items (seen 0 times during Session 1) was 3.75. Also assume that this same participant'southward average truth ratings for the repeated items were four.six, 5.9, 6.0, 5.7, and 6.0 for items seen ane, 3, 5, 7, and nine times during Session one, respectively. Adding a constant of 1 to each repetition condition, this participant's truth ratings would take a correlation of r = .80 with the linear number of Session ane repetitions (1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10), just a correlation of r = .93 with the log of the number of Session 1 repetitions (i, 0.30, 0.60, 0.78, 0.90, one.0).

4. In Experiment 1, participants took longer than expected to complete Session 1. In Experiment 2 we standardized the amount of time spent rating the Session 1 statements, and increased the compensation to ameliorate reflect the amount of time that participants spent completing the task.

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Acknowledgements

Not applicable.

Funding

Publication costs were paid by Georgia State Academy. Participant compensation came from departmental funds, provided to the S.J.B.

Writer information

Affiliations

1. Department of Psychology, San Francisco State Academy, 1600 Holloway Artery, Ethnic Studies & Psychology Edifice, San Francisco, 94132, California, USA

   Aumyo Hassan

2. Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 5010, Atlanta, GA, 30302, USA

   Sarah J. Barber

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Data reported in this manuscript served as the basis of the A.H.'due south M.A. thesis under the supervision of South.J.B. The two authors contributed equally to the design of the studies. A.H. programmed the experiments, performed initial data analyses, and prepared the outset draft of this manuscript. The second author provided consultation on each of these steps and as well contributed substantially to the preparation of this manuscript for publication. All authors read and approved the terminal manuscript.

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Correspondence to Sarah J. Barber.

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All procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Georgia State University (protocol H19217). Participants provided informed consent before get-go the report.

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Hassan, A., Hairdresser, Southward.J. The effects of repetition frequency on the illusory truth effect. Cogn. Inquiry 6, 38 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00301-v

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• Received: 29 July 2020

• Accustomed: 28 April 2021

• Published: xiii May 2021

• DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00301-5

Keywords

• Illusory truth
• Repetition
• Fluency
• Belief
• Truthfulness

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Source: https://cognitiveresearchjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41235-021-00301-5

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