Fool Me Twice: The Consequences of Reading (and Rereading) Inaccurate Information

• Published in: Applied cognitive psychology Vol. 28; no. 4; pp. 558 - 568
• Main Authors: Jacovina, Matthew E., Hinze, Scott R., Rapp, David N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-07-2014; Wiley; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Accuracy; Bias; Biological and medical sciences; Experimental psychology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Information processing; Knowledge; Language; Production and perception of written language; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reading; Human; Reading; Cognition; Language; Experimental study
• ISSN: 0888-4080; 1099-0720
• DOI: 10.1002/acp.3035

Summary
Readers frequently encounter inaccuracies in texts that contradict what they should know to be true. The current project examined readers' moment‐by‐moment processing of inaccuracies and whether any difficulty with such material is reduced when readers are already familiar with accurate versions of that content. In two experiments, participants read stories that either accurately or inaccurately described the outcome of a well‐known historic event. Preceding story contexts supported accurate outcomes or introduced suspense to create uncertainty about outcome likelihoods. During initial readings, participants took longer to read inaccurate than accurate outcomes. But this difficulty was substantially reduced when suspenseful contexts called into question the likelihood of well‐known outcomes. Similar reading patterns emerged when participants read the exact same material after week‐long and 5‐minute delays. These results indicate that biasing contexts can influence readers' processing of inaccuracies for even familiar events. Rereading proves insufficient for encouraging reliance on accurate prior knowledge. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.