Context Modulation of the Illusion of Truth Effect. Exploring the misattribution and interpretation hypothesis

Funder

Organizational Unit

Publications

Hearing a statement now and believing the opposite later

Publication . Garcia-Marques, Teresa; Silva, Rita Rocha da; Reber, Rolf; Unkelbach, Christian

Existing findings on the truth effect could be explained by recollection of the statements presented in the exposure phase. In order to examine a pure fluency account of this effect,we tested a unique prediction that could not be derived from recollection of a statement. In one experiment, participants judged the truth of a statement that had the same surface appearance as a statement presented earlier but contradicted it, for example “crocodiles sleep with their eyes open” one week after having heard “crocodiles sleep with their eyes closed”.We predicted and found that participants judged contradictory statements as being more false than new statements after a delay of only a fewminutes, but judged them as more likely to be true after oneweek. In contrast to earlier findings, this result cannot be explained by accounts relying on recollection of the previously presented statements.

2015Journal article

Restricted access

The differential effects of fluency due to repetition and fluency due to color contrast on judgments of truth

Publication . Silva, Rita Rocha da; Garcia-Marques, Teresa; Mello, Joana José de

Two experiments contrast the effects of fluency due to repetition and fluency due to color contrast on judgments of truth, after participants learn to associate high levels of fluency with falseness (i.e., a reversal of the fluency–truth link). Experiment 1 shows that the interpretation of fluency as a sign of truth is harder to reverse when learning is promoted with repetition rather than with perceptual fluency. Experiment 2 shows that when color contrast and repetition are manipulated orthogonally, the reversal of the truth effect learned with color contrast does not generalize to repetition. These results suggest speci- ficities in the processing experiences generated by different sources of fluency, and that their influences can be separated in contexts that allow the contrast of their distinctive features. We interpret and discuss these results in light of the research addressing the convergence vs. dissociation of the effects elicited by different fluency sources.

2015Journal article

Restricted access

The informative value of type of repetition: Perceptual and conceptual fluency influences on judgments of truth

Publication . Silva, Rita Rocha da; Garcia-Marques, Teresa; Reber, Rolf

We contrast the effects of conceptual and perceptual fluency resulting from repetition in the truth effect. In Experiment 1, participants judged either verbatim or paraphrased repetitions, which reduce perceptual similarity to original statements. Judgments were made either immediately after the first exposure to the statements or after one week. Illusions of truth emerged for both types of repetition, with delay reducing both effects. In Experiment 2, participants judged verbatim and paraphrased repetitions with either the same or a contradictory meaning of original statements. In immediate judgments, illusions of truth emerged for repetitions with the same meaning and illusions of falseness for contradictory repetitions. In the delayed session, the illusion of falseness disappeared for contradictory statements. Results are discussed in terms of the contributions of recollection of stimulus details and of perceptual and conceptual fluency to illusions of truth at different time intervals and judgmental context conditions.

2017Journal article

Restricted access

Judging the truth-value of a statement in and out of a deep processing context

Publication . Garcia-Marques, Teresa; Silva, Rita Rocha da; Mello, Joana José de

Individuals judge fluently processed statements truer than disfluent statements, which reflects an illusion of truth. A dual-processing approach to the truth effect suggests that cognitive resources and motivation for accuracy should moderate this effect. However, previous research has only manipulated participants’ capacity during the encoding of the statements. We directly test an account of the truth effect based on processing features of System 1, manipulating both capacity and motivation at the time of the truth judgments. Fluency was manipulated either through repetition (Experiment 1) or perceptual contrast (Experiment 2). Congruent with dualistic assumptions, the evaluations of participants in the high-capacity and high-motivation conditions differed from those of participants in the other three conditions. However, the pattern of the truth effect in that specific condition was not the same in both experiments: in Experiment 1, the illusion of truth was only reduced, whereas the effect was completely reversed in Experiment 2.

2016Journal article

Open access

Familiarity increases subjective positive affect even in non-affective and non-evaluative contexts

Publication . Garcia-Marques, Teresa; Prada, Marília; Mackie, Diane M.

Previous research shows that the experience of familiarity involves the experience of positive affect. In two experiments we clarify and extend this research by showing that the experience of familiarity involves the experience of positive affect even when the nature of the experimental task is non-affective and non-evaluative and even when participants are actively performing other cognitive operations—that the association of familiarity and positive affect is not disrupted by (non-affective and nonevaluative) judgments regardless of whether familiarity does or does not play a role in those judgments. Experiment 1 used a non-affective but evaluative task and Experiment 2 a completely non-evaluative task. Both studies manipulated familiarity through re-exposure and showed that processing familiar stimuli induced a pleasurable subjective experience.

2016Journal article

Restricted access