School of Education and Social Policy, 2120 Campus Drive, Northwestern University, 2120 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.
Department of Psychology, 2029 Sheridan Drive, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.
Mem Cognit. 2020 Oct;48(7):1128-1145. doi: 10.3758/s13421-020-01047-z.
People often reproduce information they read, which is beneficial when that information is accurate. Unfortunately, people are also often exposed to inaccurate information, with subsequent reproductions allowing for problematic decisions and behaviors. One empirically validated consequence of exposures to inaccuracies is that after reading falsehoods, participants are more likely to make errors answering related questions than if they previously read accurate statements, particularly for unfamiliar information. Interventions designed to attenuate these reproductions are often ineffective, at least as studied in tasks that restrict participants to generating answers based on text content and relevant prior knowledge. In the real world, however, people have access to outside resources to evaluate information. In three experiments, we tested whether affording the option to search for relevant online information following exposure to inaccurate statements would reduce reproductions of those inaccuracies on a post-reading task. Participants given the opportunity to search for information were less likely to reproduce inaccurate information and more likely to produce correct responses, in comparison to the performance of participants who were not allowed to search. We also tested whether warnings about potentially inaccurate information would encourage searches and inform responses. While warnings increased searching, additional reductions in inaccurate reproductions were not observed. Given the contingencies of many lab tasks, reproductions of inaccurate information might be overestimated. Resources available in the real world can offer useful supports for reducing the influence of and uncertainty associated with inaccurate exposures, consistent with contemporary accounts of memory and comprehension.
人们经常会复制他们所读到的信息，而当这些信息是准确的时候，这是有益的。不幸的是，人们也经常会接触到不准确的信息，随后的复制会导致有问题的决策和行为。暴露于不准确信息的一个经实证验证的后果是，在阅读了虚假信息后，参与者在回答相关问题时更容易出错，而如果他们之前阅读的是准确的陈述，尤其是对于不熟悉的信息。旨在减轻这些复制的干预措施通常是无效的，至少在限制参与者根据文本内容和相关先验知识生成答案的任务中是如此。然而，在现实世界中，人们可以访问外部资源来评估信息。在三个实验中，我们测试了在暴露于不准确的陈述后，提供搜索相关在线信息的选项是否会减少在阅读后的任务中对这些不准确信息的复制。与不允许搜索的参与者相比，有机会搜索信息的参与者不太可能复制不准确的信息，更有可能给出正确的答案。我们还测试了关于潜在不准确信息的警告是否会鼓励搜索并影响回答。虽然警告增加了搜索，但没有观察到不准确复制的额外减少。考虑到许多实验室任务的情况，不准确信息的复制可能被高估了。现实世界中可用的资源可以为减少不准确信息的影响和不确定性提供有用的支持，这与当代记忆和理解的解释一致。
