In contexts where people lack prior knowledge and risk awareness--such as the COVID-19 pandemic--even truthful visualizations of data can seem surprising. This can lead people to mistrust the veracity of the data and to discount it, leading to poor risk decisions. In this work, we illustrate how narrative visualizations can achieve a balance…

Misinformation often continues to influence people's reasoning even after it has been corrected. Therefore, an important aim of applied cognition research is to identify effective measures to counter misinformation. One frequently recommended but hitherto insufficiently tested strategy is source discreditation, that is, attacking the credibility…

We empirically examined the effectiveness of how the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) technique structures task information to help reduce confirmation bias (Study 1) and the portrayal of intelligence analysts as suffering from such bias (Study 2). Study 1 (N = 161) showed that individuals presented with hypotheses in rows and evidence items…

The efficacy of fake news corrections in improving memory and belief accuracy may depend on how often adults see false information before it is corrected. Two experiments tested the competing predictions that repeating fake news before corrections will either impair or improve memory and belief accuracy. These experiments also examined whether…

Some research indicates that face masks impair identification and other judgements such as trustworthiness. However, it is unclear whether those effects have abated over time as individuals adjust to widespread use of masks, or whether performance is related to individual differences in face recognition ability. This study examined the effect of…

Spaced learning--the spacing effect--is a cognitive phenomenon whereby memory for to-be-learned material is better when a fixed amount of study time is spread across multiple learning sessions instead of crammed into a more condensed time period. The spacing effect has been shown to be effective across a wide range of ages and learning materials,…

In today's knowledge economy, it is critical to make decisions based on high-quality evidence. Science-related decision-making is thought to rely on a complex interplay of reasoning skills, cognitive styles, attitudes, and motivations toward information. By investigating the relationship between individual differences and behaviors related to…

Past research suggests that an uncritical or 'lazy' style of evaluating evidence may play a role in the development and maintenance of implausible beliefs. We examine this possibility by using a quasi-experimental design to compare how low- and high-quality evidence is evaluated by those who do and do not endorse implausible claims. Seven studies…

College students lack fact-checking skills, which may lead them to accept information at face value. We report findings from an institution participating in the Digital Polarization Initiative (DPI), a national effort to teach students lateral reading strategies used by expert fact-checkers to verify online information. Lateral reading requires…

Aim: Previous research has focused on accuracy associated with real and fake news presented in the form of news headlines only, which does not capture the rich context news is frequently encountered in real life. Additionally, while previous studies on evaluation of real and fake news have mostly focused on characteristics of the evaluator (i.e.,…

One of the many sources of information easily available to children is the internet and the millions of websites providing accurate, and sometimes inaccurate, information. In the current investigation, we examined children's ability to use credibility information about websites when learning about environmental sustainability. In two studies,…

Consumers are exposed to large amounts of advertising every day. One way to avoid being manipulated is to monitor the sources of persuasive messages. In the present study it was tested whether high exposure to advertising affects the memory and guessing processes underlying source attributions. Participants were exposed to high or low proportions…

To better understand the spread of fake news in the Internet age, it is important to uncover the variables that influence the perceived truth of information. Although previous research identified several reliable predictors of truth judgments--such as source credibility, repeated information exposure, and presentation format--little is known about…

Prior studies indicate that emotions, particularly high-arousal emotions, may elicit rapid intuitive thinking, thereby decreasing the ability to recognize misinformation. Yet, few studies have distinguished prior affective states from emotional reactions to false news, which could influence belief in falsehoods in different ways. Extending a study…