These results are besides relevant for understanding the populace ’ mho answer to the COVID-19 pandemic : Our results suggest that the more much messages about COVID-19 are repeated, the more truthful they will be perceived. The consequences of this can be positive or veto, depending upon the cogency of the messages. An example of this comes from Bursztyn, Rao, Roth, and Yanagizawa-Drott ’ mho ( 2020 ) analyses of the kinship between 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 air on Fox News, beginning in early February of 2020, Carlson warned viewers that COVID-19 might pose a unplayful health threat to the USA. In contrast, Hannity primitively claimed that COVID-19 was no different than the influenza and was being used by Democrats as a political weapon. Hannity lone began to describe COVID-19 as a menace in mid-march of 2020. Being exposed to these repeated messages was associated with adverse health outcomes for the Hannity viewers. In a survey of Fox News viewers aged 55 of older in April 2020, a one standard diversion higher viewership of Hannity ( relative to Carlson ) was associated with 33 % more COVID-19 cases on March 14th, and 34 % more COVID-19 deaths on April 4th. presumably this occurred because the messages about COVID-19 had been repeatedly presented on the news program, and were believed by the viewers. This in turn may have had a ripple effect, as people are besides more probable to plowshare with others information that they have repeatedly encountered ( Effron and Raj 2020 ). A final knowledge domain for which the current experiments ’ findings are relevant is advertising. Prior research has shown that repeat advertisements are associated with people perceiving the advertised intersection as higher in quality ( Moorthy and Hawkins 2005 ), and our results suggest that it may besides increase perceived accuracy of the ad message. however, one factor that frequently moderates advertising repetition effects is the number of advertisements ( for example, Burton et aluminum. 2019 ; Kohli et alabama. 2005 ). For example, results of a meta-analysis suggest that there are increases in positive attitudes with up to 10 exposures of an ad, after which there are decreases in cocksure attitudes ( Schmidt and Eisend 2015 ). The terms “ wear-in ” and “ wear-out ” are used to describe these effects. An ad is “ wear in ” when the repetition initially garners a positive effect and is “ worn out ” when the repetition produces no consequence or even a negative one ( Pechmann and Stewart 1988 ). coherent with this estimate, data from Experiment 2 suggest that repetition-related increases in sensed truth may be “ worn out ” after 9 repetitions. As shown in Fig. 1, after 9 repetitions the truth ratings appear to approach an asymptote, and after this point the hardheaded value of further repetitions may be limited. Although we did not observe any testify that repetitions beyond this negatively affect perceived truth, it is possible that an inverse U-shape may have occurred if we had used a opinion context ( such as would occur during advertising ). This is consistent with prior research from Koch and Zerback ( 2013 ). As previously described, participants in this study read a newspaper consultation with the fall through of microcredit loans. Embedded in this interview was the statement “ microcredits reduced poverty in emerging nations,” which was repeated either one, three, five, or seven times. Results from a geomorphologic equation model suggested that increased repetitions lead to increased impression that microcredit loans decrease poverty in emerging nations. however, increased repetitions besides led participants to trust the communicator less, and to believe that the message was a persuasion attack. As a solution, participants who heard statements multiple times interpreted the reason for those repetitions as an intent to persuade them, and demonstrated reactance by evaluation the instruction lower in truthfulness.
It is besides possible that we did not observe an inverse u-shaped curve because we did not include a sufficient number of repetitions. support for this hypothesis comes from research on the mere-exposure effect. This is the detect that repeated exposure to an initially neutral and unfamiliar stimulation results in greater wish of that stimulation ( Zajonc 1968 ), and this is thought to reflect repetition-related increases processing eloquence ( Reber and Schwarz 2001 ; Reber et aluminum. 1998 ). however, a meta-analysis shows that the relationship between repetition and like resembles an inverted u-shaped curve. More specifically, liking continues to increase up to about 62 repetitions, but after this point extra repetitions lead to declines in liking ( Montoya et alabama. 2017 ; see besides Bornstein and D ’ Agostino 1992 ). If a vertex in perceive truth occurs after a alike number of repetitions, the current experiments would not have observed it. Statements were repeated a maximum of 9 times in Experiment 1 and 27 times in Experiment 2. therefore, future inquiry examining the relationship between repetition and perceived truth should include an even greater numeral of repetitions. future studies should besides address the limitations that were present in these experiments. The first being that we did not assess whether or not any of the statements included were previously known to each participant. While we could have assessed pre-experimental cognition of the facts, it has been shown that prior cognition does not shield one from the illusive truth effect ( Fazio et alabama. 2015 ). It is therefore likely that the patterns reported here would have emerged even for misinformation or fake news that contradicted anterior cognition.
A moment limitation has to do with the presentation and length of the analyze sessions. In these studies, participants read trivium statements in total darkness textbook on a whiten background for over an hour on their phones or computers. This may have contributed to mind-wandering and boredom, and even though all participants included in analyses passed our attention checks, they may not have given the statements their full moon attention. This reduce attentiveness may actually have maximized the illusive accuracy effects that were observed. For case, Hawkins and Hoch ( 1992 ) found what they termed “ low-involvement ” eruditeness was a key factor to observing the illusive truth effect. When participants were exposed to advertise statements, those who engaged in the “ low-involvement ” learning undertaking ( i, those who were asked to rate the statements based on how easy they were to understand ) experienced stronger subsequent illusive truth effects than those in the “ high-involvement ” learning job ( i, those who were asked to pace statements based on how truthful they were ). It appears that deeper date while processing the statement can protect one from repetition-based illusive accuracy effects. consistent with this, Brashier et alabama. ( 2020 ) recently found that participants who were actively involved in “ fact-checking ” the present statements showed a reduce illusive truth consequence ( at least when they had the needed cognition to perform the tax ). A final examination limitation is that we did not examine the role of repetition spacing in modulating the magnitude of the illusive truth consequence. In the stream experiments, the triviality facts ( and their repetitions ) were presented in a random order for each player during the first sketch session, but unfortunately these randomization orders were not recorded. Given anterior research showing that nervous repetition suppression is reduced for separated, as compared to massed, repetitions ( for example, Xue et aluminum. 2011 ), it is reasonable to hypothesize that illusive truth effects should besides be greater following spaced, as compared to massed, repetitions. preliminary results from our lab support this hypothesis ( Barber et aluminum. 2020 ), and ongoing research is nowadays examining the aggregate influence of the number of repetitions and the space of those repetitions in affecting perceived truth. In drumhead, our results suggest that the more much data is repeated, the more probably it is to be believed. This is crucial since we much encounter information whose robustness is stranger. Although believing repeated information to be true is evolutionarily effective in a context where most of the information encountered is correct, it can be damaging to believe information that is incorrect. sometimes these consequences can be banal : If you are repeatedly shown the delusive statement “ Salty water boils faster,” you may come to believe this to be true. however, acting on this false belief will only slenderly elongate your cook time. In contrast, other times the consequences can be dangerous : If you are repeatedly told that “COVID-19 is no more dangerous than the common cold,” you may come to believe this to be true, but acting on this false belief may increase your risk of infection and death. Although our studies did not use talk through one’s hat news program, conspiracy theories, or misinformation for stimulation, our results shed light on the mechanism underlying illusive accuracy effects, and suggest that repeated exposures likely lead to increased belief. In accession, our results suggest that the largest increases in perceived truth come from hearing information a moment time. Going beyond this, subsequent repetitions lead to increasingly smaller increases in sensed truth. however, after 9 repetitions these increases may no longer be practically meaningful .