Ecker Ullrich K H, Lewandowsky Stephan, Chang Ee Pin, Pillai Rekha
School of Psychology.
J Exp Psychol Appl. 2014 Dec;20(4):323-35. doi: 10.1037/xap0000028. Epub 2014 Oct 27.
Information presented in news articles can be misleading without being blatantly false. Experiment 1 examined the effects of misleading headlines that emphasize secondary content rather than the article's primary gist. We investigated how headlines affect readers' processing of factual news articles and opinion pieces, using both direct memory measures and more indirect reasoning measures. Experiment 2 examined an even more subtle type of misdirection. We presented articles featuring a facial image of one of the protagonists, and examined whether the headline and opening paragraph of an article affected the impressions formed of that face even when the person referred to in the headline was not the person portrayed. We demonstrate that misleading headlines affect readers' memory, their inferential reasoning and behavioral intentions, as well as the impressions people form of faces. On a theoretical level, we argue that these effects arise not only because headlines constrain further information processing, biasing readers toward a specific interpretation, but also because readers struggle to update their memory in order to correct initial misconceptions. Practical implications for news consumers and media literacy are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
新闻文章中呈现的信息可能具有误导性，却并非明显虚假。实验1考察了强调次要内容而非文章主旨的误导性标题的影响。我们研究了标题如何影响读者对事实性新闻文章和观点文章的处理，采用了直接记忆测量和更间接的推理测量方法。实验2考察了一种更为微妙的误导类型。我们呈现了以其中一位主角的面部图像为特色的文章，并考察了文章的标题和开篇段落是否会影响对该面部形成的印象，即使标题中提及的人并非所描绘的那个人。我们证明，误导性标题会影响读者的记忆、推理能力和行为意图，以及人们对面部形成的印象。在理论层面，我们认为这些影响的产生不仅是因为标题限制了进一步的信息处理，使读者偏向于特定的解释，还因为读者难以更新他们的记忆以纠正最初的误解。文中讨论了对新闻消费者和媒介素养的实际影响。（《心理学文摘数据库记录》（c）2014美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
