School of Psychology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, China.
Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Brain Development, Changchun, China.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2023 Jul 31;8(1):49. doi: 10.1186/s41235-023-00505-x.
Misinformation affects various aspects of people's lives, such as politics, entertainment, and social interactions. However, effective intervention measures to combat misinformation are lacking. The inoculation theory has become a prevalent measure of misinformation. This study employed inoculation theory and developed an interactive game to help the public counter misinformation. In this game, players take on the role of the misinformation spreader, intending to add more followers to their virtual accounts using different strategies. A total of 180 Chinese participants were randomly assigned to game-based inoculation, graphic-based inoculation, and control groups. The results indicated that both types of inoculation interventions significantly decreased the perceived credibility and sharing intention of misinformation. Game-based inoculation was more effective than graphic-based inoculation in terms of misinformation perceived credibility, and the intervention effects were stable after 2 weeks. The graphic-based inoculation contained the sleeper effect, which interventions required a period of time to take effect. Neither inoculation produced countereffects on perceived credibility and nor sharing intention of accurate information.
错误信息影响着人们生活的方方面面，如政治、娱乐和社交互动。然而，目前缺乏有效的干预措施来对抗错误信息。接种理论已成为一种流行的错误信息应对措施。本研究采用接种理论并开发了一个互动游戏，帮助公众对抗错误信息。在这个游戏中，玩家扮演错误信息传播者的角色，试图使用不同的策略在他们的虚拟账户上增加更多的关注者。共有 180 名中国参与者被随机分配到基于游戏的接种组、基于图形的接种组和对照组。结果表明，这两种接种干预措施都显著降低了错误信息的感知可信度和分享意愿。基于游戏的接种在错误信息感知可信度方面比基于图形的接种更有效，而且干预效果在两周后仍然稳定。基于图形的接种存在睡眠者效应，需要一段时间才能产生效果。接种既不会对准确信息的感知可信度和分享意愿产生反效果。
