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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 1: and we're back part two of our exploration of the

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Speaker 1: illusory truth effect, probably the liar's best trick. If you

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Speaker 1: haven't heard our last episodes, you'd probably go back listen

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Speaker 1: to that first. But if you haven't, or if you have,

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Speaker 1: let's just do a quick recap of what we talked

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Speaker 1: about last time. We discussed all of the research on

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Speaker 1: this thing that's sort of been part of folk wisdom

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Speaker 1: that if you say something and if you repeat it

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Speaker 1: and repeat it and repeat it, people become over time

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Speaker 1: more likely to believe that thing. And that is thoroughly

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Speaker 1: validated by experimental research, right. And we also talked a

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Speaker 1: little bit about why does it even make sense that

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Speaker 1: we would come to believe things that were not true

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Speaker 1: about the world that we live in just because they

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Speaker 1: were repeated. Yeah, And so the basis that we ultimately

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Speaker 1: ended up on last time that seems to be favored

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Speaker 1: by most of the psychologists to study this is based

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Speaker 1: in the idea of processing fluency that for whatever reason,

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Speaker 1: one researcher we talked about last time came to believe

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Speaker 1: that it was because of conditioning based on real world effects.

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Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, we tend to associate things that

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Speaker 1: are easy to process, things with high processing fluency with truth.

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Speaker 1: So something's easy to read, we think it's more true.

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Speaker 1: Or if something is an idea we've seen or heard

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Speaker 1: or encountered before, because that's easier to process. Because of familiarity,

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Speaker 1: we believe that it is more likely to be true

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Speaker 1: than if we're encountering it for the first time. But

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Speaker 1: of course in all of this extreme implausibility is going

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Speaker 1: to be a boundary condition that's going to kick in.

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Speaker 1: So this is like the Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer?

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Speaker 1: Uh level of of of implausibility? What just because the

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Speaker 1: ages don't match up right well, just and it's just

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Speaker 1: kind of like, all right, I'm not blieeding that that's

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Speaker 1: it's ridiculous, but some people do believe that. So your

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Speaker 1: boundary condition may not be where somebodynoundary condition is that

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Speaker 1: the boundary conditions will vary from individual to individual. Um.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, So the question that we should address to

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Speaker 1: start off in this one is in the last episode,

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Speaker 1: we discussed how this effect has been thoroughly validated in

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Speaker 1: the lab. But here's a question does it work in

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Speaker 1: the real world and is it really all that powerful?

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Speaker 1: Like a lot of researchers seem to assume that, surely,

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Speaker 1: if you already know something about a subject, repetition of

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Speaker 1: a contradictory false statement wouldn't actually undermine your real knowledge,

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Speaker 1: would it. Surely they would tend to assume that this

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Speaker 1: slusory truth effect only works for state statements that were

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Speaker 1: uncertain about to begin with, and statements that seem highly plausible,

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Speaker 1: like if you didn't know anything about either Ted Cruz

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Speaker 1: or the Zodiac Killer really and then you would just

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Speaker 1: sort of say, all right, maybe that's possible, whereas an

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Speaker 1: individual who has read multiple books on the Zodiac Killer

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Speaker 1: would say, no, that doesn't that doesn't match up. That

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Speaker 1: is just ridiculous. Yeah, So that that's the assumption. But unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: some more recent research has really turned that assumption on

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Speaker 1: its head. So I want to talk about an important

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Speaker 1: recent study in the illusory truth effect that brings it's

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Speaker 1: a bearer of bad news. The study is from the

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Speaker 1: Journal of Experimental Psychology General in by Fasio Brashier, Pain

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Speaker 1: and marsh and it's called knowledge does not protect against

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Speaker 1: illusory truth. So they pointed out that the illusory truth

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Speaker 1: effect that we talked about last time, based on processing fluency,

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Speaker 1: is widely accepted, well established, but it had been previously

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Speaker 1: thought that this effect was constrained by a few things. Now,

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Speaker 1: one constraint shown to actually exist in the literature is

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Speaker 1: recollection of the quality of the source of the information.

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Speaker 1: So previous studies have shown that if you specifically remember

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Speaker 1: where a statement came from, and you consider the source

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Speaker 1: of the statement a dishonest or untrustworthy source, that can

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Speaker 1: produce kind of a reverse truth effect, where repetition of

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Speaker 1: a statement known to come from a liar or an

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Speaker 1: untrustworthy source causes us to disbelieve it. So this sounds

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Speaker 1: like this should be good news, right right? Yeah? Did

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Speaker 1: I ultimately the question did I hear that on the radio? Did?

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Speaker 1: Or did I see it on a T shirt? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Or was this on the cover of the National Enquirer?

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Speaker 1: Like you remember that's where it came from, and you're

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Speaker 1: you know, that's an untrustworthy source. So it actually has

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Speaker 1: the reverse effect. You hear that repeated and it makes

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Speaker 1: you go, no, no, no, that's not true at all.

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Speaker 1: But this isn't as much of a protection as we think,

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Speaker 1: because honestly, how well do you remember the exact source

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Speaker 1: of every bit of semantic knowledge in your head? Why no,

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Speaker 1: bat Boy did not come from the New York Times,

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Speaker 1: But there are lots of other things that are in

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Speaker 1: your head that did come from the cover of the

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Speaker 1: National Enquirer, and you don't remember that that's where it

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Speaker 1: aim from. I guarantee it you've stood in line at

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Speaker 1: the grocery store. Well, if it's a story about any

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Speaker 1: particular aged celebrities, brave last days or sad last days,

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Speaker 1: they probably came from inquired But yes, there there, there's

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Speaker 1: probably there are probably some stories in there that I

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Speaker 1: would not definitely be able to pin down to inquire

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Speaker 1: versus other sources, Robert, I see right through your bravado.

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Speaker 1: Some Inquirer stories have gotten through to you. Uh yeah.

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Speaker 1: Other studies have backed this up. After just a period

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Speaker 1: of a few weeks, what may have once been stored

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Speaker 1: in the brain as false claim by an untrustworthy source

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Speaker 1: could potentially, over time become just a familiar statement I remember, which,

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Speaker 1: of course, once it's familiar translates it into more likely

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Speaker 1: to be a true fact. There was at least one

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Speaker 1: study that looked into this by beg Annas and far

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Speaker 1: Nacci in nineteen two called Dissociation of Processes and belief,

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Speaker 1: source recollections, statement, familiarity, and the Illusion of truth, And

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Speaker 1: basically they found that when the source of a claim

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Speaker 1: is not super memorable as unreliable, familiarity can be more

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Speaker 1: important than truth or reliability. Okay, so it's not necessarily

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Speaker 1: a like a magazine that that has a negative reputation

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Speaker 1: in your mind, but it's not something that's completely reputable either.

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Speaker 1: It just kind of follows in between. Or even if

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Speaker 1: it has a negative reputation and it's just not all

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Speaker 1: that memorable, you can lose track of where it came

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Speaker 1: from and it will suffer from the illusory truth effect.

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Speaker 1: This can happen even when you should have remembered that

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Speaker 1: it came from an untrustworthy source. There are exceptions when

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Speaker 1: the source is really memorable, but a lot of times

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Speaker 1: it doesn't protect you. Now, the second assumption about constraints

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Speaker 1: on the illusory truth effect is about knowledge. Right, We've

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Speaker 1: all got knowledge already in our heads, and the idea

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Speaker 1: is that pre existing knowledge will protect against the effect,

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Speaker 1: and this is what came under scrutiny in this particular

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Speaker 1: study by Fasio and our co co authors. In so,

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Speaker 1: despite being an assumption repeated again and again in the

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Speaker 1: illusory truth literature, very few of the studies actually bothered

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Speaker 1: to test whether knowledge protects people. I was just sort

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Speaker 1: of asserted to be true as if it were obvious,

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Speaker 1: and the few that did bother to test it in

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Speaker 1: any way generally did so by testing how the effect

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Speaker 1: presented in people who claimed subject area expertise. So uh,

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Speaker 1: these studies yielded contradictory results. But here's a couple of examples.

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Speaker 1: Scroll in nineteen eight three found that if you rate

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Speaker 1: yourself as an expert on cars, Robert, would you rate

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Speaker 1: yourself as an expert on cars? But some people would win.

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Speaker 1: Some people around the office. Yeah, car experts, well found

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Speaker 1: suffered smaller illusory truth effects uh than non experts on

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Speaker 1: car trivia. So that would suggest, okay, knowledge gives you

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Speaker 1: a little bit of an edge. You're not You're not

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Speaker 1: as susceptible as amateurs. And then Parks and Tough in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and six had people rate claims about known

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Speaker 1: versus unknown consumer brands, and the illusory truth effect was

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Speaker 1: bigger for statements about brands that people were unfamiliar with.

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Speaker 1: That makes sense. So like, if you didn't already know

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Speaker 1: anything about this brand, you were more susceptible to illusory

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Speaker 1: truth effect on statements about the brand. Yeah, that makes

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Speaker 1: perfect sense. On the other hand, Archy's Hackett and boem

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Speaker 1: in nine nine found the opposite, that the higher a

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Speaker 1: person rated their expertise in a subject, the more susceptible

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Speaker 1: they were to the illusory truth effect in that subject area.

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Speaker 1: Makes you wonder if there's like some kind of insecurity

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Speaker 1: or like identity protective thing going on that. Yeah, like

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Speaker 1: I don't want I don't I don't want to be wrong,

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Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna nod my head on that. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to look bad. I've already staked my reputation

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Speaker 1: on being a car expert. Also, boem in nineteen found

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Speaker 1: that psychology majors showed a larger illusory truth effect on

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Speaker 1: psychology than non majors. But there's some issues with these studies,

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Speaker 1: so Assio and her co authors point out that these

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Speaker 1: types of tests don't actually manipulate direct knowledge of whether

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Speaker 1: the statements are true or false, just sort of the

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Speaker 1: perception of related knowledge. So they wanted to test this directly.

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Speaker 1: They created a big list of statements like we've seen

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Speaker 1: in these other tests, where you'll have true statements and

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Speaker 1: false statements, and they base this off existing lists of

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Speaker 1: facts that have been shown in previous studies to be

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Speaker 1: either generally known or generally unknown. And this created four

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Speaker 1: categories of statements. You've got known truths, unknown truths, known falsehoods,

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Speaker 1: and unknown falsehoods. Here's some examples. You've got a known

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Speaker 1: truth quote, the cyclops is a legendary one eyed giant

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Speaker 1: of Greek mythology. Robert checks out. Checks out. Okay, how

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Speaker 1: about the Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean in the world.

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Speaker 1: Checks out. Then you go into known falsehoods. The minotaur

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Speaker 1: is the legendary one eyed giant of Greek mythology. Absolutely not.

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Speaker 1: The Atlantic Ocean is the largest ocean in the world,

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Speaker 1: and most people are expected to know that these are

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Speaker 1: not true statements. Then you've got unknown stuff. Here's an example.

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Speaker 1: Unknown truth Billy the kid's real last name? What was it?

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Speaker 1: It's Bonnie. Unknown falsehood Billy the kid's real last name

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Speaker 1: is Garrett. Yeah, I would have It would have been

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Speaker 1: a toss up for me because I did not know

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Speaker 1: Billy the kid's last name. I thought maybe it was

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Speaker 1: a kid, you know, as in kid Rock as Kid

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Speaker 1: Rocks first name is Billy kids last name and his

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Speaker 1: middle name is there. There you go. So experiment one

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Speaker 1: using this set of statements, forty students in the first phase.

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Speaker 1: Subjects were shown a subset of statements from the list

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Speaker 1: of all four types, and they were just asked to

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Speaker 1: judge how interesting the statements were. You know, that sounds

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Speaker 1: like a really fun task, right, Billy the kid's last

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Speaker 1: name is Bonnie? How interesting was that? I get? More

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Speaker 1: interesting than some names? Yeah? Maybe, I guess. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I didn't find that one that interesting. Yeah, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I guess it sounds like Bonnie as in like pretty

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Speaker 1: it sounds. It sounds maybe a little odd for what,

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Speaker 1: based on the photos, need to be kind of like

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Speaker 1: an ugly looking, you know, Western outlaw. It makes me

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Speaker 1: think like a Robert Burns kind of poem thing. And

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Speaker 1: Bonnie Glenn or whereas Garrett sound, you know, it has

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Speaker 1: kind of a guttural sound to it. Ye, got right, okay,

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Speaker 1: So then they got the second phase. This happened immediately

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Speaker 1: after the first phase. Students were given another subset of

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Speaker 1: statements from the list, again all four types of statements,

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Speaker 1: and they were warned that some statements were true and

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Speaker 1: some were false, And they were also warned that they

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Speaker 1: would see some repeats from the list that they had

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Speaker 1: just reviewed for how interesting they were. And then they

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Speaker 1: rated the claims on a scale of one to six

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Speaker 1: about how true they were. There was also at the

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Speaker 1: end an open ended knowledge check test with it had

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Speaker 1: these open ended questions like what is the world's largest ocean?

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Speaker 1: What is the one eyed monster of Greek myth uh

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Speaker 1: to strengthen the experiment or's picture of the individual knowledge

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Speaker 1: of each participant. So then you got the results. First

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Speaker 1: of all, the original findings of the illusory truth effect

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Speaker 1: were replicated. Repeated statements got higher truth ratings new statements

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Speaker 1: that the students had never seen before. But also, quite surprisingly,

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Speaker 1: knowledge did not seem to prevent the illusory truth effect.

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Speaker 1: Statements about both previously known and previously unknown facts were

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Speaker 1: rated more true if they were repeated than if they

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Speaker 1: were new. In other words, repetition increased perceived truthfulness, even

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Speaker 1: for contradictions of facts that you know. So I want

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Speaker 1: to quote from the author's quote reading a statement like

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Speaker 1: a sorry is the name of the short pleaded skirt

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Speaker 1: worn by Scott's increased participants later belief that that statement

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Speaker 1: was true, even if they could correctly answer the question

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Speaker 1: what is the name of the short pleaded skirt worn

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Speaker 1: by Scotts? Isn't that bizarre? So like you ask somebody

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Speaker 1: they answer kilt. But if you show them the phrase

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Speaker 1: skirt worn by Scots, and then show them the phrase

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Speaker 1: again later, they will they will take the repeated phrase

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Speaker 1: as evidence that that statement is more true than if

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Speaker 1: they saw the statement for the first time. Again, it

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Speaker 1: comes back to the shortcuts that our brain makes. How

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Speaker 1: how weird? This's bizarre? I mean again, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: a reminder that the human culture and human language just

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Speaker 1: complicates everything. Yeah, it's crazy. Uh So again, the authors

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Speaker 1: found that the repetition effect also emerged for truth. So

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Speaker 1: it wasn't just false statements, it was true statements. To

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Speaker 1: whether it's true or false, If you repeat it, people

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Speaker 1: believe it more. So the takeaway from this first experiment

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Speaker 1: is whether a statement is true or false, and whether

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Speaker 1: you already no better or not. If somebody repeats the

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Speaker 1: statement to you, on average, you're more likely to believe it.

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Speaker 1: And then the second part of their study was kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting. So they're discussing their own finding and they say, quote,

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Speaker 1: the data suggests a counterintuitive relationship between fluency. Remember that's

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Speaker 1: the fluency processing fluency. How easy it is to press

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Speaker 1: this information between fluency and knowledge. Prior work assumes that

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Speaker 1: people only rely on fluency if knowledge retrieval is unsuccessful

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Speaker 1: i e. If participants lack relevant knowledge or fail to

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Speaker 1: search memory at all. Experiment one demonstrated that the reverse

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Speaker 1: may be true. Perhaps people retrieve their knowledge only if

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Speaker 1: fluency is absent. So to test this out, they did

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Speaker 1: a second experiment and they repeated a modified version of

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Speaker 1: the experiment to test it. Uh. They believe that their

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Speaker 1: results indicate that people sometimes use a fluency conditional model,

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Speaker 1: which means they would rely on fluency even if knowledge

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Speaker 1: is available to them. You start with fluency, and influency fails,

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Speaker 1: you fall back on what you actually know. We shouldn't

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Speaker 1: over interpret it, but in a limited way. There may

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Speaker 1: be processes in the brain that say, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: go for what feels easy before I even check my

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Speaker 1: memory to see what, I know, what kind of lines

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Speaker 1: up with there the mind's tendency to want to offload

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Speaker 1: memory to people and gadgets like I do I have

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Speaker 1: to remember that anymore if the machine is going to

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Speaker 1: do it or my spouse is going to do it,

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Speaker 1: and the brain says no, I think, well, that's completely

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Speaker 1: prune that section. Here's the question. How often have you

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Speaker 1: used a calculator to do math that you could yourself

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Speaker 1: easily do? Um? You know what I mean? Like, not

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Speaker 1: not problems that would be really hard, but something that

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Speaker 1: if you just took ten seconds you could probably solve

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Speaker 1: in your head. Yeah. I do that in Dungeons and

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Speaker 1: Dragons sometimes when we get into hit points and whatnot.

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Speaker 1: You know, I could certainly easy. I could either do

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Speaker 1: it in my mind or just do it, you know,

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Speaker 1: and pin and pencil real quick. But I'll go ahead

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Speaker 1: and type it into my calculator just to yeah, I

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Speaker 1: get it done. I've done the same thing too. It's weird.

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Speaker 1: It's a little disturbing why or search engines, you know,

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Speaker 1: just just throwing in the mathematical equation something really simple,

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Speaker 1: um so, such as just determining how old a particular

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Speaker 1: actor is or how old they would have been during

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Speaker 1: a certain movie. I feel like I do that all

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Speaker 1: the time, Like you're saying, you do that even though

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Speaker 1: you could easily know the answer if you checked your

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Speaker 1: own memory. M hm. I feel like I do that

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Speaker 1: less with search engine Like I definitely do the calculator thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: not so much that I would remember, say how old

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Speaker 1: Robert de Niro was during Godfather Too, but I would

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Speaker 1: just use it. Would suddenly wonder how old he was,

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Speaker 1: And so I would you do the simple mathematical scenario

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Speaker 1: of you know, subtracting subtracting one year from the other.

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Speaker 1: Let's plant a lie in everybody's mind right now, Robert

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Speaker 1: de Niro was four hundred and twenty three years old

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Speaker 1: when he did Godfather Too. And now you'll remember that

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Speaker 1: that's implausible. That that's the implausibility barrier in action. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: maybe I should do something else. Yeah, we'll come back

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Speaker 1: to that. But anyway, So the conclusion of this experiment

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Speaker 1: by Fasio and Co. Authors is that quote participants demonstrated

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Speaker 1: knowledge neglect or the failure to rely on stored knowledge

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Speaker 1: in the face of fluent processing experiences, so they'd rather

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Speaker 1: go for what was easy to process than what was

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Speaker 1: the correct answer based on their own knowledge. At the

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Speaker 1: same time, it's really important to note that this doesn't

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Speaker 1: happen every time, it doesn't happen with every person, it

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Speaker 1: doesn't happen with every question, and it doesn't necessarily happen

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Speaker 1: with huge effects, so the effect is relatively small. This

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Speaker 1: was actually pointed out pretty well in a BBC article

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Speaker 1: in sixteen by Tom Stafford. He pointed out that while

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Speaker 1: repeated exposure to statements increase their believability, the biggest influence

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Speaker 1: on whether a statement was rated true or not was

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Speaker 1: whether it was actually true. So the the illusory truth

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Speaker 1: effect is valid, and it does change the averages of

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Speaker 1: the answers, but it's not like the only thing that matters,

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Speaker 1: and it doesn't overpower our real knowledge about the truth.

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Speaker 1: It's just weird that it does have some effect in

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Speaker 1: the face of actual knowledge we have when actual knowledge

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Speaker 1: should mean it has no effect. Does that make sense again?

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Speaker 1: I just come back to the you know to to

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Speaker 1: to the fact that the mind is going to offload

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Speaker 1: whatever information it can or whatever processing it can. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: those lazy brains of ours. Okay, well, we should take

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Speaker 1: a quick break and the when we come back, we

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Speaker 1: will discuss more recent research on the illusory truth effect

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Speaker 1: and some related concepts and what it means for our lives.

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Speaker 1: Than all right, we're back. So we've discussed the subject

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Speaker 1: of false memories before. The many ways in which false

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Speaker 1: memories can form UM. Psychologist Daniel Shackter identified seven in

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Speaker 1: fact his his work the seventh sins of memory, transients

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Speaker 1: and absent mindedness, blocking, misattribution, bias, persistence. Uh, and I

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Speaker 1: like to think of it this way. Memory is is

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Speaker 1: not something that is carved in stone, but rather uh,

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Speaker 1: something that is sculptured from clay. And the clay of

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Speaker 1: memory remains valuable every time we retrieve it from the

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Speaker 1: drawer and handle it. As psychologist Pascal Boyer, who referenced

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Speaker 1: in our last episode pointed out, um examples of this

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Speaker 1: range from wordless recall, intrusions and experiments, to therapy induced

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Speaker 1: imaginings of past lives and or ritual abuse, which we've

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Speaker 1: we've discussed on the episode on the on the show

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Speaker 1: before in past episodes. Uh so, memory retrieval is a

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Speaker 1: very delicate stage. There's actually a line from the television

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Speaker 1: series The Expanse that I think captures this perfectly well.

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Speaker 1: The character Miller played by Thomas jane Um. He sums

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Speaker 1: up that they have the character sum up this rather

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Speaker 1: perfectly says, you know, every time you remember something, your

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Speaker 1: mind changes it a little, until your best and worst

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Speaker 1: memories are your biggest illusions. So in the two thousand

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Speaker 1: and eleven paper Remembering makes evidence compelling retrieval from memory

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Speaker 1: can give rise to the illusion of truth from Jason

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Speaker 1: d Azubko and Jonathan Fugel, saying the authors conclude that quote,

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Speaker 1: memory retrieval is a powerful method for increasing the perceived

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Speaker 1: validity of statements and subsequent illusion of truth, and that

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Speaker 1: the illusion of truth is a robust effect that can

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Speaker 1: be observed even without directly pulling the factual statements in question. WHOA,

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Speaker 1: so this is sort of the same effect, but not

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Speaker 1: statements coming in from the outside. Right. So they conducted

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Speaker 1: a two seven person study, all individuals from the University

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Speaker 1: of Waterloo, so we're, you know, relatively small study, and

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Speaker 1: they and they admit that they quote may have made

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Speaker 1: it particularly difficult to observe any differences between our control

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Speaker 1: condition and our experimental conditions. So as always, you know,

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Speaker 1: more studies are required. But uh, here's how it shakes out. Quote.

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Speaker 1: If this account is correct, the current work demonstrates that

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Speaker 1: information retrieved from memory cannot only be viewed as relatively

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Speaker 1: more important than more difficult to retrieve information, but can

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Speaker 1: also be viewed as more important than information that is

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Speaker 1: explicitly provided. In particular, information that is retrieved from memory

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Speaker 1: may actually be more fluently processed in general than information

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Speaker 1: that is directly perceived. So the idea here is that

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Speaker 1: repetition entailed in memory retrieval need not be from an

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Speaker 1: external source. It can be internal. In the form of

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Speaker 1: memory retrieval, it is it is quote naturally more familiar

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Speaker 1: in fluent than information that is perceived. Wow, that that

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Speaker 1: is profound. Actually, like the idea that you that your memories,

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Speaker 1: the haze of your memories is greater evidence sometimes to

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Speaker 1: your own mind than what's in front of your eyes

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Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, and it and it means that like

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Speaker 1: for the for the lie or the untruth to to resonate, Uh,

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Speaker 1: it only needs to be memorable, like something that you'll

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Speaker 1: continually retrieve and that forms that serves as a form

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Speaker 1: of repetition. Oh, and this is so true of so

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Speaker 1: many of these lies they get repeated so often in

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Speaker 1: public conversations. Is that they're the really memorable, weird, outlandish

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Speaker 1: ones that stick around. I think about in the last episode,

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Speaker 1: we talked about the the belief that's still so common

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Speaker 1: that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Yes, there's no

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Speaker 1: evidence of it, and it's like such a weird thing

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Speaker 1: to suggest that it sticks in people's brains, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and then you keep coming back to you keep rethinking it. Um,

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Speaker 1: I guess we just made you think of it again. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the horrible thing about this, right. We'll have to

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Speaker 1: have a discussion about that at the end of the episode.

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Speaker 1: Another way of looking at it is this, So, if

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Speaker 1: you're a regular listener to this podcast, if I were

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Speaker 1: to remind you in every episode that Joe drinks a

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Speaker 1: full cup of coffee every morning before he gets out

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Speaker 1: of bed, that's not true. That's a lie that I

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Speaker 1: just made up. But if I repeated it in every episode,

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Speaker 1: and even if Joe said it's a lie, you're hearing

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Speaker 1: it enough right that the repetition is going to uh

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Speaker 1: potentially influence you. And it's also it's it's a perfectly

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Speaker 1: reasonable lie. Right, there's no like if you said, oh,

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Speaker 1: that's actually what I do, nobody would think you weird

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Speaker 1: or anything. Right, it'd be kind of weird that I

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Speaker 1: drank it without getting out of bed. Well, I assume

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Speaker 1: somebody brings it to you, or I mean, I didn't

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Speaker 1: say that you have the coffee machine set up on

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Speaker 1: the I've got a night stand coffee robot that pours

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Speaker 1: coffee on my face every morning. But but what if

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Speaker 1: instead of saying this sly every episode, what I just

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Speaker 1: once I told everybody that Joe McCormick before he gets

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Speaker 1: out of bed in the morning, he um, he shoots

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Speaker 1: back three six hour energy drinks, one after the other. No,

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Speaker 1: do you do that to me? Robert Like, but that's

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Speaker 1: potentially more memorable because it's a little stranger, it's maybe

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Speaker 1: a little more funny, and therefore it's exactly the kind

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Speaker 1: of untruth that might pop up again. Like you're just

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Speaker 1: you're thinking of Joe. You're hearing Joe talk and you're like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Joe shooting back six hour energy drinks first thing in

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Speaker 1: the morning. I don't do that either, come on, But yeah,

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Speaker 1: I totally see your point, and I think you're absolutely correct.

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Speaker 1: So what they're saying here is essentially that there is

428
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:50,359
Speaker 1: an illusion of truth effect, not just for statements you

429
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:53,200
Speaker 1: hear from the outside, but from your own memories. Every

430
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,159
Speaker 1: time you go back and check in with the memory,

431
00:23:55,160 --> 00:23:58,480
Speaker 1: you're reinforcing it and making it seem more true, even

432
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 1: if you didn't necessarily believe it to be true in

433
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 1: the first place. Yeah, and you know, they don't really

434
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:05,520
Speaker 1: get into this, but it also makes me think of

435
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:08,520
Speaker 1: like just negative things people might have said to you

436
00:24:08,560 --> 00:24:11,320
Speaker 1: in the past. You know, if you know some criticism

437
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:15,840
Speaker 1: that is is not accurate, but it steams you, and

438
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 1: then you end up sort of you end up reflecting

439
00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 1: on it, perhaps even traumatically, and then it makes you

440
00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 1: more susceptible to its power. Well, yeah, I mean, as

441
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 1: as always, you have that fear that all criticisms of

442
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:28,959
Speaker 1: you are accurate. Now, I'd like to turn to another

443
00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:33,000
Speaker 1: paper here, this one with the title making up History

444
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: False memories of fake news stories, And this is from

445
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 1: Europe's Journal of Psychology from two thousand and twelve. Uh,

446
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: and again it's worth noting, Uh, this is again a

447
00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:45,879
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve paper, So this predates the more recent

448
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:50,680
Speaker 1: usage and politicization of the term fake news. So in

449
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:52,920
Speaker 1: this they wanted to see if false news stories that

450
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 1: were familiar would result in the creation of false memories

451
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:59,840
Speaker 1: of having heard the story outside of the experiment. So

452
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 1: had a small study here forty four undergraduate psychology students

453
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:06,440
Speaker 1: and they're participating in exchange for course credit. They exposed

454
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 1: the participants to false news stories that they portrayed as true,

455
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:12,399
Speaker 1: and then five weeks later, the participants were found to

456
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,199
Speaker 1: be more likely to rate the false news pieces as

457
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:19,880
Speaker 1: true than test subjects only just exposed to the stories. Uh.

458
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 1: They the author's right. These results suggest that repeating false

459
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,640
Speaker 1: claims will not only increase their believability, but also result

460
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 1: in source monitoring errors. So again we get in back

461
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:33,840
Speaker 1: into this situation where you're you have this headline or

462
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 1: this news story popping around in your head, but you

463
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:38,399
Speaker 1: ask yourself, where did I hear that? Was it a

464
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:41,719
Speaker 1: talk show, radio talk show? Uh? Was it the BBC?

465
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:44,400
Speaker 1: Was it a verified news source in my Facebook feed?

466
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 1: Or just some dubious bit of news that's kind of

467
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: passing through. Oh and by the way, the author not

468
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: authors on that particular UM paper is Danielle C. Coolage. Yeah,

469
00:25:56,400 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: this really makes me think about how, I don't know,

470
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 1: I wonder how the Internet has changed the way we

471
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 1: think about sources of information. Like has the Internet and say,

472
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 1: like social media feeds made us more scrupulous about the

473
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 1: sources of information or less scrupulous I don't know, or

474
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: maybe it's had a you know, divergent effect on different people. Well,

475
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:21,639
Speaker 1: I think you have. You you do have sort of

476
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: two different timelines going on there, because I feel like,

477
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: on one hand, you have the industry responding. You have

478
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: like Facebook, for instance, responding to criticisms and an overall

479
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 1: need for better sourcing and uh an attribution of of

480
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 1: publication sources. And then also I think every individual is

481
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 1: probably going through this this situation where perhaps they're more

482
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:46,679
Speaker 1: trusting and then they realize, oh, I really need to

483
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: be better about seeing where I'm getting my information and

484
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: then have it to self correct. Now there's another paper

485
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 1: that gets into some of this here, and this UH

486
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 1: is a four forthcoming paper from the Journal of Experimental

487
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 1: Psychology General. Now we should just out with le Lester

488
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: a scare. This is a forthcoming paper, so take with

489
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: a grain of salt that it has not yet fully

490
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:09,479
Speaker 1: passed all of the pre pre publication review procedures. But

491
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:11,679
Speaker 1: it's a it's been put out there and people have

492
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:15,400
Speaker 1: been talking about it. Yeah. Titled prior exposure increases perceived

493
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:18,400
Speaker 1: accuracy of fake news and and key here and all

494
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:22,119
Speaker 1: this is quote fluency via prior exposure. They say that

495
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:27,440
Speaker 1: even a single exposure increases subsequent perceptions of accuracy. Quote Moreover,

496
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:31,680
Speaker 1: this illusory truth effect for fake news headlines occurs despite

497
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 1: a low level of overall believability, and even when the

498
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 1: stories are labeled as contested by fact checkers or are

499
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 1: inconsistent with the reader's political ideology. Also key here, that

500
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 1: is the extreme implausibility that we've been discussing. You know,

501
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 1: this boundary condition over the illusory truth effect. Um only

502
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 1: a small degree of potential plausibility is sufficient for repetition

503
00:27:56,240 --> 00:28:00,119
Speaker 1: to increase perceived accuracy. How small, Well imagine it is

504
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 1: going to vary from individual to individual. Right, we come

505
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: back to this. You mentioned earlier that then my my

506
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:09,639
Speaker 1: boundary condition is not gonna be the same as yours. Yeah, Yeah,

507
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 1: that's a weird thing to wonder about. So, like you

508
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: might say that, for one person, if you showed them

509
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 1: a headline about bat Boy, they would not that wouldn't

510
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: even register as possibly true to begin with, So they're

511
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 1: never gonna believe it's more likely to be true later,

512
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: but somebody else might. But a lot of those other

513
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: types of headlines, just like weird, you know, kind of

514
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 1: nasty rumors about celebrities or politicians, A lot of those

515
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:38,719
Speaker 1: that are slightly more plausible than say, bat Boy, are

516
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 1: probably gonna stick in a lot of people's minds. I

517
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: think about the way that news feed algorithms keep popular

518
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 1: stories in front of your eyes on social media. If

519
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: you keep coming back and scrolling, the most popular fake

520
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 1: news stories do tend to show up again and again

521
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 1: and again. Yeah, and then hopefully people are shooting it

522
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 1: down again. But but even then it's gonna have matter.

523
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 1: It's going to have a limited effect based on this

524
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:06,040
Speaker 1: particular study here. Yeah, so it's worth remembering that these

525
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 1: effects are small, but small effects can add up quick example,

526
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: one of these fake headlines that they looked at here

527
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 1: was it was this ridiculous story and totally untrue Originally

528
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 1: five percent believed it was true. The second time people

529
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: saw it, ten percent believed it was true. So that

530
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: might sound small, but aggregated over whole populations with lots

531
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: of manipulative false stories and lies, this kind of thing

532
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: could have huge effects. It could swing an election in

533
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 1: a country. It could tip public opinion on an issue

534
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: from a minority opinion to a majority opinion. It could

535
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 1: have real effects in the world. Yeah, you're gonna have

536
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 1: more than one of these going on at a given time.

537
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: Some of them are gonna catch on, some of them

538
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: are not. But uh, adding them all together and they

539
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 1: could have an effect. So I think maybe we should

540
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:53,959
Speaker 1: transition to talk about what we should do, both as

541
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 1: receivers of information trying to figure out what's true and

542
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:01,200
Speaker 1: as purveyors of information who you know how public conversations.

543
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: What should we do in order to try to avoid

544
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 1: creating wide widespread misbeliefs in knowing what we know? Now, well,

545
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:16,040
Speaker 1: let's receive an advertisement and then come right back with

546
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: an answer to that question. Okay, thank you, thank you,

547
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 1: all right, we're back. So one of the first questions

548
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: I think we should ask is what can you do

549
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: about this if you So say you've listened to these

550
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: past couple episodes and you're like, wow, So I I

551
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: accept that I'm susceptible to the illusory truth effect. I

552
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:37,360
Speaker 1: know that being exposed to an untrue statement, or hearing

553
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: an untrue statement repeated, is going to probably make me

554
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: more likely to believe it. How can I protect myself

555
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 1: against it? Especially given that we've seen all these studies

556
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 1: showing that various things apparently don't protect you or don't

557
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: necessarily protect you. Knowing otherwise isn't even necessarily going to

558
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 1: protect you. And I've I've felt that before, Robert, I

559
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 1: don't know about you, Like there are cases where I'm

560
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: confident that I actually know what's true. I've done the research,

561
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 1: I know what reality is, and yet seeing a lie

562
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 1: that's that exists in contradiction to what I know, over

563
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: and over and over again actually does work on me.

564
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: I can feel it working on me. I can feel

565
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: doubt setting in. When I see a lie repeated with

566
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: great frequency, I start to wonder, like, is it true?

567
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 1: I mean, I've checked it out before and there's nothing

568
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 1: to it. But maybe I don't I miss something, Maybe

569
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 1: the maybe there's some new information I'm not pretty too. Yeah,

570
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 1: so I really do feel it working on me, even

571
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: though you know I'm somewhat aware of this, and so

572
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 1: it can be difficult. It can be hard to know

573
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: what to do to protect yourself. But here's one thing

574
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 1: I want to offer as a as a general rule.

575
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 1: A huge red flag for judging a statements truth or

576
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: falsehood is I feel like I've heard that somewhere before,

577
00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 1: And I do this. I'm you know, I I fall

578
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 1: prey to this. I do it all the time. Actually,

579
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 1: in a conversation, I think something's true because I have

580
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 1: exactly that feeling. I feel like I've heard this somewhere before.

581
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 1: I would say, if it feels familiar, but you can't

582
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 1: recall why it's true, and you can't recall the source

583
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,760
Speaker 1: of where you heard it, you are in the danger zone.

584
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 1: That is the red That is the red zone for

585
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: repeating and reinforcing a false belief. So I think maybe

586
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: we should try a little experiment. Let's do it. Let's

587
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 1: repeat something a bunch of times and see if it

588
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 1: sets in. So here's the phrase, if it feels familiar,

589
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 1: check the facts. If it feels familiar, check the facts.

590
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 1: If it feels familiar, check the facts. If it feels familiar,

591
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 1: check the facts. It feels familiar, check the facts. Death

592
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 1: to video Dromes, Long Live the New Flesh. All right,

593
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 1: well we've we've we've done it, job, Joe, I think

594
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 1: we've we've won. Now we haven't one yet. There's actually

595
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: there's some more stuff we've got to talk about. Uh So.

596
00:32:57,360 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: One of the other studies we looked at was just

597
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: study in political communication in twos sixteen by Emily Thorson

598
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: called belief echoes the persistent effects of corrected misinformation, And

599
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:12,800
Speaker 1: this was a study where they did three experiments. Thorsen

600
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 1: writes that they showed that exposure to negative political information

601
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 1: persists even after people are informed that the information was

602
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 1: not true. So this goes along with some of the

603
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: fake news stuff we were just talking about. And Thorson

604
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 1: calls these beliefs that persist after being discredited quote belief echoes.

605
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 1: So she writes, quote belief echoes occur even when the

606
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 1: misinformation is corrected immediately. The gold standard of journalistic fact

607
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 1: checking the existence of belief echoes racist ethical concerns about

608
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:47,479
Speaker 1: journalists and fact checking organization's efforts to publicly correct false

609
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 1: claims so dang. So even correcting a lie tends to

610
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 1: increase people's belief in the lie. What can you do then,

611
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 1: I know, I mean in this on top of the

612
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 1: reality that in some cases, corrections are not going to

613
00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 1: resonate as as as much as the original, uh lie

614
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: or the original bit of unfactual information. Well, yeah, very

615
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: often a lie is interesting in the correction is not

616
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: interesting the corrections page two, but the the original. That's

617
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 1: the headline on page one. Yeah. So there was a

618
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,400
Speaker 1: article in the Columbia Journalism Review by the Dartmouth political

619
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: scientists Brendan Nihan. It was called building a Better Correction. Now,

620
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 1: this is not necessarily responding to the exact same research

621
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: we've been talking about, but it addresses the fact that

622
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: journalistic fact checking, corrections and so forth can be insufficiently

623
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:44,480
Speaker 1: effective at correcting false beliefs, and it does end up

624
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: coming up with a few recommendations based on Nihand's research

625
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 1: and other people's research in recent years. Number one is,

626
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:56,720
Speaker 1: of course, identify sources that speak against their ideological interests.

627
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 1: So apparently people are more likely to accept a correction

628
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 1: on a false belief for a widely repeated lie if

629
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 1: that correction comes from somebody who who it's against their

630
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,280
Speaker 1: political interests to to discredit it. Does that make sense?

631
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: So in the political sphere, if it is a misconception

632
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:16,319
Speaker 1: that's widely held on the right, you need to get

633
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 1: somebody from the right to discredit it. If it's widely

634
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 1: held on the left, you need to get somebody from

635
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 1: the left to discredit it. Right. So like if if

636
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 1: the correction is pandas are not the most awesome animal

637
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:29,759
Speaker 1: on the planet, it's going to carry more weight if

638
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:34,279
Speaker 1: Panda weekly runs that correction as opposed to you know,

639
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:38,359
Speaker 1: Grizzly Bears monthly exactly correct. So the second point coming

640
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:41,720
Speaker 1: from the research is don't just assert that a false

641
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 1: claim is false given alternative causal account, So you give

642
00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: a different explanation to read a quote from the article

643
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: quote in the fictitious scenario used in one study, For example,

644
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: respondents who were told of the presence of volatile materials

645
00:35:58,040 --> 00:36:01,320
Speaker 1: at the scene of a suspicious fire continued to blame

646
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: the materials even after being told the initial report was mistaken.

647
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:08,840
Speaker 1: So you tell them there's volatile materials there, there was

648
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: a fire, what caused the fire? Oh, those volatile materials

649
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: weren't actually there. People say, oh, it was caused by

650
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 1: the volatile materials. So the only way to persuade people

651
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: against that seemed to be to give them another explanation

652
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: of what caused the fire. So you don't say, no,

653
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,759
Speaker 1: those materials weren't actually there. You say they weren't there

654
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 1: and the fire was caused by arson if that's true. Obviously,

655
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:35,280
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't want to make up fake alternative accounts,

656
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: but like, this is how you correct a misperception with

657
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: the truth. Is you give them the alternative causal account

658
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,879
Speaker 1: that is true. And then finally, this is a big one,

659
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 1: don't state the correction is the negation of the lie.

660
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 1: Instead state the true fact that stands in contradiction of

661
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: the lie. Yeah, if you're having to say I am

662
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: not a cruk, you're kind of saying I have a cruk.

663
00:36:57,600 --> 00:36:59,799
Speaker 1: Instead you say I am a good person. Yeah, if

664
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:02,759
Speaker 1: that's true. I mean the good people don't usually say

665
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 1: I'm a good person. Yeah. So, but an example would

666
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:08,799
Speaker 1: be from the thing we used at the beginning of

667
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: the last episode about this widespread belief that crime has

668
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 1: gone up in the United States since two thousand eight.

669
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:17,399
Speaker 1: That's not true. At all. Crime has gone down. So

670
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: you shouldn't say it's not true that crime has gone up,

671
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 1: because a lot of times people are just gonna remember

672
00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:25,840
Speaker 1: crime has gone up. Instead, what you should say and

673
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 1: that we've been violating this all this time. Here, what

674
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,279
Speaker 1: you should say is crime has gone down since two

675
00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 1: thousand eight. State the true fact, don't negate the lie,

676
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:37,359
Speaker 1: and we have something we can chant to make this

677
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:39,480
Speaker 1: really take hold in everybody's mind. I don't know. I

678
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:42,360
Speaker 1: don't want to make you uncomfortable. You want to chance.

679
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 1: Let Okay, So here's here's the way i'd put it.

680
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 1: You won't kill a lie by repeating it. Instead, say

681
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:51,719
Speaker 1: what's true. You won't kill a lie by repeating it? Instead,

682
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:55,320
Speaker 1: say what's true. You won't kill a lie by repeating it. Instead,

683
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 1: say what's true? Death to video Drone. No, you won't

684
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: kill a lie by repeating it. Instead, say what's true.

685
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: If I feel like if we could have made it rhyme,

686
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: we would have helped. Oh maybe too light. It does

687
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:09,399
Speaker 1: feel kind of creepy to chance, And that gets into

688
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: a thing that I did want to talk about at

689
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 1: the end here. That's frustrating because I wonder if there

690
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 1: is sometimes a sort of perverse system widely spreading bad beliefs,

691
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:23,320
Speaker 1: essentially because people who are willing to lie and spread

692
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:28,440
Speaker 1: malicious misinformation are also more willing to blatantly use proven

693
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:33,240
Speaker 1: manipulation techniques like repetition and chanting and illusory truth, while

694
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:35,920
Speaker 1: I feel like more often people who want to spread

695
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 1: the truth and want to spread true messages are more

696
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:42,600
Speaker 1: hesitant to use blatantly manipulative types of rhetoric and communication.

697
00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:44,800
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to say like I'm so good,

698
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:48,160
Speaker 1: but like I don't want to give people misinformation. But

699
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: also in trying to help them with that stuff, I

700
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 1: was just saying, like I felt very uncomfortable, like chanting

701
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 1: a phrase over and over again, even though I knew

702
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:59,319
Speaker 1: it would be effective, right. I mean, generally speaking, if

703
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 1: individuals are are very serious about journalism, they're going to

704
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 1: want to adhere to the standards of their industry and

705
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:10,240
Speaker 1: maybe not you know, fall back on you know, tribal

706
00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 1: chance about about something because they feel they feel so

707
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: obviously manipulative, and they feel that way because they work.

708
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: I mean, this is kind of like a whole this

709
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:23,160
Speaker 1: is a whole other area discussion, but you know, I

710
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: can't help but think in terms of the click bait

711
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:29,320
Speaker 1: and the ease of publication and distribution. I mean, naturally,

712
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 1: this isn't something that's going to apply to individuals who,

713
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:36,280
Speaker 1: via celebrity and or political power, already reach a wide audience.

714
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 1: But you know, any wild conspiracy theory or accusation can

715
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: can penetrate a lot deeper, seemingly these days than in

716
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:46,840
Speaker 1: pre internet days. And we talked earlier about some of

717
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: the celebrity urban myths from decades past and about how

718
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 1: to really get going. They had to you had to

719
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:56,319
Speaker 1: have just the right celebrity um urban legend, and it

720
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:59,120
Speaker 1: had to had to spread by word of mouth or

721
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:02,800
Speaker 1: maybe a you know, a concentrated effort to send facts

722
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 1: is across Hollywood potentially. I don't even know if that's

723
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:09,440
Speaker 1: true in the Richard Gear case, but that might be

724
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: a repeated false story exactly. Yeah, that's that's one of

725
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:15,560
Speaker 1: those situations where I think that correct me if I'm wrong,

726
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 1: but out there. But I don't think anyone's ever really

727
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 1: been able to get to the bottom of like where

728
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:26,400
Speaker 1: the urban legend even really emerged from UM. But yeah, nowadays,

729
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 1: like the ease of publication is a lot lower and

730
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,440
Speaker 1: we're we're having we're currently in a time where we

731
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:34,440
Speaker 1: seem to be correcting and figuring out, well, how do

732
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 1: we manage this just plethora of of of publications of

733
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 1: varying uh, you know, you know, ethical solidity. But that's

734
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 1: just one part of the issue obviously. Well, it's a

735
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 1: really difficult time. Yeah, our media landscape is is difficult.

736
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: I don't know what to what to do, Like, what

737
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:59,320
Speaker 1: the best way to address the wide spread of misinformation

738
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 1: through social media and the internet is. I mean, you can't, like,

739
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to become a sensor and

740
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:07,879
Speaker 1: lock it down and say, well I will decide what's

741
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: true and false. I'll shut you down. You'd want there

742
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 1: to be an organic way where people would would I

743
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:14,719
Speaker 1: don't know, have the tools to tell between truth and

744
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:18,960
Speaker 1: falsehood themselves. Yeah, you know. And then one of the

745
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 1: issues too for us is that we we sometimes discuss

746
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:26,839
Speaker 1: theories and hypotheses that that are not true or I've

747
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 1: been disproven over time that this is exactly something I

748
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about at the end of the episode today,

749
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:35,399
Speaker 1: it's a very frustrating takeaway from this conversation we've had,

750
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 1: Um that there could be negative effects from discussing what's

751
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:43,279
Speaker 1: wrong with bad ideas and false claims because something we

752
00:41:43,360 --> 00:41:45,479
Speaker 1: love to do, we love to do on this show.

753
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 1: For example, we just did an episode about the ancient

754
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 1: aliens hypothesis, something that I don't want to speak for

755
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 1: both of us. I think neither of us think there's

756
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 1: any good evidence to believe is true. I do not

757
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:59,279
Speaker 1: believe there is, so we we put no stock whatsoever

758
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 1: in this hypo. Theis it's the belief that ancient aliens

759
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 1: came to the Earth. All of the evidence is either

760
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:08,279
Speaker 1: really bad over interpretation or outright fraud. And yet it's

761
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:12,880
Speaker 1: fascinating to understand this widely held, unfounded belief, to understand

762
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 1: where it came from, why people believe it, To talk

763
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: about the real facts and the real knowledge that undermine

764
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 1: the existing claims in this belief structure, uh, to think

765
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 1: about what good evidence there could be for past alien contact,

766
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:28,359
Speaker 1: if there, if it did exist. Yeah, it's it's kind

767
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: of like trying to imagine how a dragon would work

768
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 1: based on real world biology. Yeah, you know, like you

769
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: don't want to advocate that dragons are real, but it

770
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:37,759
Speaker 1: is fun to to take it apart and say, well,

771
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:39,399
Speaker 1: if they were real, this is how it would work,

772
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,440
Speaker 1: and your discussion of that should be based on real biology,

773
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 1: and so all this stuff. This is all stuff that

774
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: I really enjoy and I think is very valuable. But

775
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder if even by having that kind

776
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: of discussion, some people are more likely to, you know,

777
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 1: months years down the road later, remember as true the

778
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: claims that we zamin in order to criticize and understand

779
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: where they come from in the episode. I don't know

780
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: if there's any way around that. Like, I don't think

781
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:09,760
Speaker 1: it's reasonable to say we should live in a world

782
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 1: where nobody ever examines or talks about why widely held

783
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: untrue beliefs. That that just doesn't seem reasonable. I think

784
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 1: we learn almost as much about the world and about

785
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:24,239
Speaker 1: ourselves from critically studying the false misbeliefs we hold as

786
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 1: we do from say, reading a list of objectively true

787
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:30,480
Speaker 1: statements about the world. It's not like studying false beliefs

788
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:34,240
Speaker 1: is uninformative. It's very informative. Yeah, And in some cases

789
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:37,359
Speaker 1: it's it's about not not repeating history, right, not being

790
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:40,879
Speaker 1: doomed to repeat history. Um, when we when we've talked

791
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 1: about eugenics, for instance, on the show, Uh, you know

792
00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: that there's some horrible ideas wrapped up in eugenics, but

793
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: it is it is worth remembering. It's it's it's worth

794
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:52,800
Speaker 1: knowing how we got there. Yeah, we we had that

795
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 1: discussion with Karl Zimmer a while back, because that talked

796
00:43:55,040 --> 00:43:57,360
Speaker 1: about that, and that's an important part of the history

797
00:43:57,400 --> 00:43:59,880
Speaker 1: of the study of inheritance. If you just ignore it

798
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:03,440
Speaker 1: and say we never will talk about that anymore, um,

799
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 1: you you do a disservice to, like, you know, the

800
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 1: memory of all the evil that was done in its name.

801
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 1: And yeah, you like you're saying, you open yourself to

802
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:12,839
Speaker 1: not being aware of the really bad paths people can

803
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 1: go down. Now. Now, of course, obviously ancient aliens is

804
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 1: less high stakes than that. But but still I think

805
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 1: the same as some of the same principles apply. And

806
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:23,799
Speaker 1: then then again at the same time, I like, I

807
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 1: don't want to deny this research. I acknowledge it seems

808
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 1: very true that bringing up a statement, even to discredit

809
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 1: the statement or even to criticize the statement, can have

810
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 1: the negative side effect of many people increasing their belief

811
00:44:38,520 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: in that statement later on, just because it sticks somewhere

812
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:43,319
Speaker 1: in the back of their mind. They don't remember the

813
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:45,960
Speaker 1: original context in which it came up, which was a

814
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 1: context of criticism or context of debunking, and so people

815
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 1: just kind of they think, oh, maybe there is something

816
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: to that. I've heard that somewhere before. It feels kind

817
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 1: of familiar. Yeah, well, and I guess one of one

818
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 1: argument one could make then would be, Hey, if you're

819
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:03,600
Speaker 1: going to cover ancient aliens, then you also have to

820
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:05,680
Speaker 1: make sure that you cover an ancient in an ancient

821
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:10,360
Speaker 1: aliens free way, like how life actually emerges on Earth,

822
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:15,560
Speaker 1: which we certainly discussed evolution on the show before. So

823
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:19,440
Speaker 1: I think we're we're mostly there. Well, I'm not worrying

824
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 1: that we have a deficiency of saying true things, but

825
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:24,759
Speaker 1: I wonder what we can do about the fact that

826
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 1: these types of discussions of bad ideas that are really

827
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 1: important and interesting to have can also have these negative

828
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:35,360
Speaker 1: side effects. I don't think I know quite what the

829
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:39,319
Speaker 1: answer is yet. Obviously it will depend a lot on

830
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:42,279
Speaker 1: the context of the idea. Oh yes, certainly, and then

831
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:45,000
Speaker 1: this would actually be a great a great topic to

832
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:47,960
Speaker 1: hear back from listeners on. Really, yeah, help me out

833
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:50,440
Speaker 1: of this dilemma. I feel stuck. I don't think I

834
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: can live in a world where false beliefs and bad

835
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 1: ideas can never be spoken of. That would sort of,

836
00:45:56,719 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: It would rob intellectual life of so much of its richness,

837
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:02,040
Speaker 1: you know, ven us from gaining all these insights about

838
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 1: our culture and our minds. At the same time, I

839
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 1: don't want to spread bad beliefs. I don't know what

840
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:10,720
Speaker 1: to do about that. Well, remain remains an open question

841
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:13,439
Speaker 1: for now. Then and in the meantime, If you want

842
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 1: to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind,

843
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: head on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

844
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:18,880
Speaker 1: That's the mother ship. That's where you will find them,

845
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 1: as well as links out to our various social media accounts.

846
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:23,359
Speaker 1: And if you want to help the show, you want

847
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 1: to support the show, rate and review us wherever you

848
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:28,720
Speaker 1: have the ability to do so. Huge thanks as always

849
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 1: to our wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and Torry Harrison.

850
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:33,799
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

851
00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 1: directly to to get me out of my dilemma from

852
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 1: this episode, or to suggest a topic for a future episode,

853
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:42,279
Speaker 1: to give feedback on this episode or any other, just

854
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:44,400
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855
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Speaker 1: You can email us at blow the Mind at how

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857
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Speaker 1: Big f