The Illusory Truth Effect

Begg (1992)

"Henry Ford forgot to put a reverse gear in his first automobile" -judge how interesting each statement is -Later: more statements added, and participants judge how certain (or not) to be true

Results of Newman's (2015) Experiment

-Statements accompanied by photos were more rated likely to be true -The photos offered no additional information

Fazio (2015)

Argued that the effect of fluency (ease of remembering) contributes to impression of truth

The Illusory Truth Effect Occurs due to

Fluency or familiarity with the information

Newman's (2015) Experiment Method

Participants rated the truth of a statement: -combined with a photo -or on its own

Newman (20150

What about Photos?

The Illusory Truth Effect is

the enhanced probability of evaluating a statement as being true upon repeated presentation