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Speaker 1: My welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how

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

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm

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Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. In. Today, we're gonna be talking about one

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Speaker 1: of our favorite subjects, our tendency to believe things that

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Speaker 1: aren't true. Uh. Now, Robert, I wonder is there a

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Speaker 1: false factoid or claim that you just always find yourself

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Speaker 1: recalling as true even though you've checked it before and

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Speaker 1: discovered it to be false in the past. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is an interesting question because I feel like there are

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Speaker 1: things that come up in research all the time, certainly

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Speaker 1: key things over the years. Uh. You know, as we

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Speaker 1: research and riot different topics where I have to correct on,

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Speaker 1: you know, where I think I knew something and then

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Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, well that's that's actually now that actually

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Speaker 1: do the research, it's not not a not a fact.

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Speaker 1: And then then you know, the same goes for false beliefs,

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Speaker 1: that beliefs that they creep in the sort of Mandela

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Speaker 1: fact type of scenario. For instance, there was a time

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Speaker 1: when I thought Gene Wilder was dead prior to his

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Speaker 1: actual death, and then as he actually dead, now he

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Speaker 1: was actually dead now. So I thought he was dead

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Speaker 1: before he was dead exactly because and I think it

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Speaker 1: was just a combination of he was not as active anymore,

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Speaker 1: and I wasn't really keeping up with the Gene Wilder

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Speaker 1: filmography and like current events related to Gene Wilder and

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Speaker 1: something maybe I picked up on some news piece at

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Speaker 1: some point and somehow he got clicked to the dead category.

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Speaker 1: And then when I found out he was alive, it

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Speaker 1: was it was really like he came back to life.

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Speaker 1: And I had the same thing happened literally just the

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Speaker 1: other day with a standout comedian, Larry Miller. I don't

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Speaker 1: think I remember who that is. Oh. He he had

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Speaker 1: to kind of you know, dry observational comedy. He he

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Speaker 1: had a I think he still acts, but he would

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Speaker 1: show up on say night chord. I think, oh wait

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Speaker 1: a minute of seeing some Christopher Guest movies. He may

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Speaker 1: have been. Yeah, But for some reason years ago, I

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Speaker 1: got into my had that he had passed away, And

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Speaker 1: so occasionally I would think of Larry Miller and be like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I remember Larry Miller. Too bad he passed. And then

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Speaker 1: I actually looked him up the other day and it

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Speaker 1: turns out he has not passed away. He's still very

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Speaker 1: much alive and active, and I was just living in

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Speaker 1: this fantasy world of dead Larry Miller's. You know, I

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Speaker 1: have false beliefs that recur with much more significance, Like

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Speaker 1: I keep remembering that. Yeah, maybe it's just because I

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Speaker 1: was told this all the time when I was a kid,

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Speaker 1: that vitamin C supplements will ward off colds. That is

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Speaker 1: not experimentally proven, that that is like not a finding

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Speaker 1: of science. And yet I just always if I haven't

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Speaker 1: checked in a while, it just seeps right back in, like, yes,

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Speaker 1: that is true, vitamin C it'll keep colds away. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's easy to fall into the trap. I do this

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Speaker 1: all the time with with various vitamins and some supplements

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Speaker 1: where I'm like, I don't know if it works, probably

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Speaker 1: doesn't work, but I'm gonna go and take it just

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Speaker 1: in case, because it's it's vitamin C. You know, what's

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Speaker 1: the what's what's the harm there? It's kind of like

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Speaker 1: believing in God's in cases that he exists. Believing in vitamins. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but then you end up with like a weird sort

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Speaker 1: of vitamin tentnacle going out of your neck and you

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Speaker 1: didn't see that coming. That's fake news. The Joe Vitamin

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Speaker 1: C will not cause a tentacle to grow out of

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Speaker 1: your neck. But now you've heard it, it's true. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, I feel like there are things that have

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Speaker 1: popped up where where I'll think, well, I've always heard X,

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Speaker 1: but I've never actually looked it up. Um. And and

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Speaker 1: then that's where the problem seeps in, you know, where

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Speaker 1: I just I think I know something, but I'm not sure,

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Speaker 1: but I don't care enough to actually investigate. Um. There

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Speaker 1: is one possible example that that comes up, and that

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Speaker 1: is there was this, of course, the idea that George

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Speaker 1: Washington Carver invented peanut better. He did know he had

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Speaker 1: something to do with peanuts. He had, so yeah, he was.

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Speaker 1: He was. He is a famous inventor, important to African

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Speaker 1: American inventor. And I just I didn't know a lot

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Speaker 1: about him, and I had always heard the peanut better thing,

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Speaker 1: but I didn't actually research until I helped my son

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Speaker 1: with a class project about him earlier this year, and

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Speaker 1: then I was able to definitely, you know, check that

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Speaker 1: one off on the mental list, like, okay, this is

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Speaker 1: this is this is false. He did not invent peanut butter.

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Speaker 1: He did, but he did do stuff with peanuts, do

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Speaker 1: stuff with peanuts, but not peanut butter. Okay. You know.

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Speaker 1: A huge place where you can see false beliefs persisting

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Speaker 1: um is in people's beliefs about sort of like political

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Speaker 1: facts or sociological data. A very very common one is

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Speaker 1: people's beliefs about crime. I think it's because like crime

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Speaker 1: is one of those like sensational types of subjects and

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Speaker 1: makes people think about violence, images of blood they see

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Speaker 1: on the news and stuff like that. In a poll

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Speaker 1: conducted by Pew in the fall of get this, fifty

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Speaker 1: seven percent, so a majority of people who had voted

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Speaker 1: or planned to vote in ten said that crime had

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Speaker 1: gotten worse in the United States since two thousand eight

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Speaker 1: by every objective measure. Exactly. The opposite is true. That's

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Speaker 1: just not true. FBI statistics based off of like nationwide

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Speaker 1: police reports UH found that violent crime and property crime

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Speaker 1: in the United States fell nineteen percent and twenty three percent, respectively,

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Speaker 1: between two thousand and eight. And and so you think, okay, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe that if that's just police reports, maybe fewer people

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Speaker 1: are reporting crimes to the police, right, But also the

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Speaker 1: U S Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics does

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Speaker 1: direct annual surveys of more than ninety thousand households to

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Speaker 1: see about rates of crime that might not be reported

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Speaker 1: to police, and quote the b j S state to

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Speaker 1: show that violent crime and property crime rates fell twenty

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Speaker 1: six percent and twenty two percent, respectively between two thousand eight.

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Speaker 1: And so a majority of people are believing something that

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Speaker 1: by every measure we know, is not true. Crime has

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Speaker 1: gone down, and yet a majority of people believe it

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Speaker 1: has gone up. And it's not hard to see why

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Speaker 1: that might be true when you consider like the political

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Speaker 1: messaging of certain politicians. It's also you could also, of

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Speaker 1: course think about just people negativity bias, right, the tendency

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Speaker 1: to believe things are worse than they are in the

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Speaker 1: broad sense or mean world syndrome looking at dangerous stuff

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Speaker 1: happening on the news and thus having an overrepresentation of

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Speaker 1: it in your mind. But I think we would be

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Speaker 1: wrong to ignore the effects of hearing specific politicians well,

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Speaker 1: for for example, in twenty sixteen, specifically, it was Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump a lot talking about how crime is through the roof, right,

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Speaker 1: And to your point, we can look to statistics on this.

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Speaker 1: This is not something that is uh, that is just

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Speaker 1: you know, in the ether, we have hard data. It's

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Speaker 1: not a matter of opinion. It's just like every measure

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Speaker 1: we have says that's not correct. But what about other beliefs,

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Speaker 1: I mean that that's certainly not in isolation. There are

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Speaker 1: lots of cases where there are widespread beliefs in things

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Speaker 1: that are just simply factually not true. Yeah. I'll run

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Speaker 1: through a few here that that range on topic. For instance,

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Speaker 1: here's a nice science related one to kick off with. UH.

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Speaker 1: In a two thousand fifteen PU survey, only thirty percent

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Speaker 1: of Americans knew that water boils at a lower temperature

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Speaker 1: at higher altitudes. Thirty nine percent said it would boil

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Speaker 1: at the same temperature in Denver in l A, again

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Speaker 1: Denver being at a far higher altitude, and had it reversed.

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Speaker 1: So the majority, something like two thirds of people were

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Speaker 1: just flat wrong, yes and uh yeah. And to put

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Speaker 1: that in perspective with another science fact, most Americans in

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Speaker 1: this two thousand fifteen survey eight correctly identified the Earth's

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Speaker 1: inner layer, the core, as its hottest part. And uh

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Speaker 1: nearly as many two percent knew that uranium was needed

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Speaker 1: to make nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Well, should we

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Speaker 1: be comforted by the fact that that's what people know.

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Speaker 1: I don't like, they don't know much about water, but

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Speaker 1: they know about nuclear weapons. Well. I mean, on one hand,

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Speaker 1: nuclear weapons is was is and was more in the news. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then on the other hand, like the the inside

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Speaker 1: of the earth is more engaging and and also completely unpoliticized. Uh. Well, well,

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Speaker 1: water is not politically boiling point of water is not politicized.

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Speaker 1: But it's also not very sexy. I guess like it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things where unless you're actively

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Speaker 1: moving from low to high altitudes, or you know, living

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Speaker 1: part of your time and dinner from part of your

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Speaker 1: time in l A, I guess it's it's very possible

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Speaker 1: to live your entire life without really having any real

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Speaker 1: world experience with the difference. Uh. Though, I do feel

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Speaker 1: like if you read enough baking manuals, it comes up. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but maybe you just don't remember which way it goes.

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Speaker 1: I guess I say that you know one of the

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Speaker 1: ones you've got here that that has come up many

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Speaker 1: times in my life. It's come up enough that I

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Speaker 1: know the right answer now. But the misconception that you

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Speaker 1: can see the Great Wall of China from space. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is one that I have to admit. I think

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Speaker 1: I used to adhere to again without really a rap

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Speaker 1: princing it, because it just it had that kind of

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Speaker 1: truthiness to it, right, and you want it to be

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Speaker 1: to be real. The idea that that this this epic

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Speaker 1: structure created uh you know long ago, is visible from space,

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Speaker 1: but it's actually been been disproven multiple times. It's it's

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Speaker 1: only visible from low orbit under very ideal conditions, and

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Speaker 1: it's not visible from the moon at all. Because that's

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Speaker 1: another version of it, that it's that that the Great

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Speaker 1: Wall of China can be seen from the moon. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess there are nuances to the word visible. What's

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Speaker 1: that mean? But in the normal sense that you would

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Speaker 1: mean it's not visible from space. Now a two thousand

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Speaker 1: sixteen you gov poll, this was this is a UK group.

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Speaker 1: They looked at how belief in Pizza Gate, that thing,

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Speaker 1: how that shakes out across different voter groups. Now, that

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Speaker 1: was this vast conspiracy theory people had about how there

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Speaker 1: was a pizza restaurant in Washington, d C. That was

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Speaker 1: like running child slavery ings that was linked to the

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Speaker 1: Democratic Party. Yeah, it had to do with an idea

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Speaker 1: that Clinton campaign emails supposedly talked about human trafficking and pedophilia.

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Speaker 1: And according to this particular poll, seventeen percent of polled

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Speaker 1: Clinton voters believed that that this was the case, this

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Speaker 1: was a reality, and forty percent of Trump voters did. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then there's another classic they looked out to to

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Speaker 1: put this in perspective, the idea that President Barack Obama

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Speaker 1: was born in Kenya. Kind Of alarmingly enough, across both

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Speaker 1: groups of voters, both the Clinton voters and the Trump voters,

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Speaker 1: they found thirty six percent believed it, despite the fact

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Speaker 1: that that too, has been debunked time and time again. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy that these types of beliefs can

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Speaker 1: catch on so well, especially like we we understand very

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Speaker 1: well the way that political ideology and tribal thinking affects

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Speaker 1: the way we form opinions. Obviously, our our opinions are

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Speaker 1: deeply informed by what people we view as our in

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Speaker 1: group believe, and so we want to be in line

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Speaker 1: with the in group and and stuff like that. But

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Speaker 1: you also can't really ignore the fact that these are

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Speaker 1: things that if you pay attention to certain sources you're

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Speaker 1: going to be hearing over and over and over again,

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Speaker 1: and what effect that might have, Because it's, you know,

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Speaker 1: widely accepted folk wisdom that if you repeat a lie enough,

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Speaker 1: people start to believe that it's the truth. Right, That's

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Speaker 1: one of the things. I mean, I don't know, you've

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Speaker 1: said it enough times that I'm already convinced exactly, I

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Speaker 1: mean almost going along with this. Uh. There's a quote

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Speaker 1: that often gets sourced to the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Gebbele's. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Some versions of the quote say something like, if you

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Speaker 1: repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and

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Speaker 1: you will even come to believe it yourself. I couldn't

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Speaker 1: find any evidence that just Gebbels actually said that. It

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Speaker 1: seems to be a misattribution, but it's sort of a

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Speaker 1: paraphrase of similar ideas that are you know, within that

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Speaker 1: that frame of thinking. Like Adolf Hitler himself throat in

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Speaker 1: mind comp quote, The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield

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Speaker 1: no success unless one fundamental principle is born in mind

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Speaker 1: constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to

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Speaker 1: a few points and repeat them over and over here,

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Speaker 1: as so often in the world, persistence is the first

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Speaker 1: and most important requirement for success. So just the fact

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Speaker 1: that Hitler said it obviously shouldn't make us think, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, he's right. He was Hitler though. If if

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Speaker 1: Hitler was good at anything, it was getting lots of

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Speaker 1: people to believe lies. Certainly. So, I think because this

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Speaker 1: is such an important issue, and because widespread misconceptions are

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Speaker 1: so common, and because they can, in fact, especially in

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Speaker 1: some political circumstances, be so destructive, and because the repetition

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Speaker 1: of lies and false statements in in at every scale

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Speaker 1: of existence, you know, in in mass media and in

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Speaker 1: our personal private lives, is so common, I think it's

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Speaker 1: worth looking at the actual empirical case. Is this true,

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Speaker 1: the idea that repeeding statements over and over does that

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Speaker 1: actually change what we believe. It's one of those things

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Speaker 1: that you know, it sounds so common sensical you just

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Speaker 1: assume it's true. But according to the logic we're using now,

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Speaker 1: those are exactly the kinds of statements that maybe we

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Speaker 1: should be careful about. Yeah, and I think this is

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Speaker 1: an important important topic for for everybody. I don't care

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Speaker 1: who you voted for in any previous elections, or which

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Speaker 1: political party in your given system that you adhere to.

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Speaker 1: I think if you're listening to this show especially, you

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Speaker 1: want to think for yourself. You want to reduce the

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Speaker 1: amount of manipulation that's going on with your your own

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Speaker 1: view of reality and and and that's what we're going

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Speaker 1: to discuss here today. We're gonna discuss the degree to

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Speaker 1: which false information can manipulate our view of reality and ultimately,

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Speaker 1: what are some of the things we can do to

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Speaker 1: to hold onto our our our individuality and all of

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Speaker 1: this exactly. So this is going to be the first

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Speaker 1: of a two part episode where we explore the liar's

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Speaker 1: best trick, the question of repetition and exposure in forming

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Speaker 1: our beliefs and changing our attitudes. So that's going to

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Speaker 1: be the jumping off point for today's episode. Does exposure

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Speaker 1: and repetition Is hearing a claim and hearing it repeated

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Speaker 1: actually have the power to change our beliefs or is

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Speaker 1: that just unverified folk wisdom? Yeah? And and of course

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Speaker 1: it goes it goes well beyond politics. It also gets

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Speaker 1: into marketing. You know, we've we've touched on the manipulative

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Speaker 1: nature of marketing and advertisement on the show before, And

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Speaker 1: it's always one of the things you always come back to.

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Speaker 1: It's always about messaging, right, like what is the message

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Speaker 1: of the product, what's the message of the ad campaign?

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Speaker 1: And how they just continue to hammer that home. Why

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Speaker 1: do brands have slogans? Yeah? Why don't they just tell

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Speaker 1: you a positive message about the brand that's different every time?

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Speaker 1: Why do they tell you the same message in the

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Speaker 1: same words in every commercial? Yeah? Why did those fabulous

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Speaker 1: horror trailers from the nineteen seventies say the name of

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Speaker 1: the film eighteen times, don't go in the basement, don't

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Speaker 1: go in the basement? No one er seventeen will be admitted. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's all. It's all kind of part of the same situation.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're going to take a quick break

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Speaker 1: and when we get back we will dive into the

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Speaker 1: research in the history of psychology about repetition and exposure.

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Speaker 1: Thank alright, we're back. So the first question we're going

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Speaker 1: to be looking at today is whether anyone has actually

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Speaker 1: studied this question, this question of whether exposing people to

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Speaker 1: acclaim and then repeating the claim makes them believe it,

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Speaker 1: Whether anybody studied that in a controlled scientific context. And

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Speaker 1: the answer is a resounding yes. There are I think

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Speaker 1: dozens of studies on this subject in various forms. Probably

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Speaker 1: the flagship study on this, the first big one that

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Speaker 1: everybody sites that that really got people into the subject,

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Speaker 1: that got the ball rolling on it was from ninety

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Speaker 1: seven and it was by Lynn Hasher, David Goldstein, and

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Speaker 1: Thomas Topino, and it was called Frequency and the Conference

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Speaker 1: of Referential Validity in the Journal of Verbal Learning and

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Speaker 1: Verbal Behavior. And that was, as I said, in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy seven. So the authors started out in the study

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Speaker 1: by talking about how most studies of memory that take

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Speaker 1: place in the lab involved useless or meaningless information units.

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Speaker 1: So researchers, for example, might try to see how well

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Speaker 1: subjects remember a phrase like I just made this up.

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Speaker 1: The purple donkey was made of soft spoken muscular elves, Like,

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Speaker 1: can you remember that word for word? The purple donkey

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Speaker 1: was made by muscular elves, now, now you're close, not

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Speaker 1: made of Yeah, it makes a lot more sense to

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Speaker 1: say made by wo But I see, I've already messed

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Speaker 1: up the origin story of the purple donkey. Statements like

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Speaker 1: this have no importance in the real world, and part

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Speaker 1: of what they were talking about is that we're testing

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Speaker 1: for memory and things that don't have any validity to reality. Um,

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Speaker 1: so the authors right that they're curious about what kind

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Speaker 1: of processing subjects do with information units that might have

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Speaker 1: validity in the real world. For example, factual statements like quote,

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Speaker 1: the total population of Greenland is about fifty thou which

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Speaker 1: at the time of the study it was I checked. Though,

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Speaker 1: that seems like a lot more people than should be

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Speaker 1: in Greenland, right I was. I was surprised by that. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would agree based on I'll be a limited amount

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Speaker 1: of of information that I've I've read and viewed about Greenland.

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Speaker 1: You know, typically in my experience, Greenland shows up in

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Speaker 1: nature documentaries and of course you're going to see rather

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Speaker 1: barren h locations in those films. Well, greenlanders out there

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Speaker 1: in the audience. Let us know, if you're listening, what's

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Speaker 1: life like up there in Greenland? I'm interested now. But

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Speaker 1: anyway back, so, yeah, population of Greenland at the times

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Speaker 1: about fifty and so statements like this both refer to

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Speaker 1: something that could be true or false in the real world,

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Speaker 1: and there are also things that people are probably uncertain about,

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Speaker 1: like do you know what the actual population of Greenland

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Speaker 1: is I didn't know before I looked it up, And

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Speaker 1: so we know that the statement is either true or false,

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Speaker 1: but we aren't sure whether it's true or false. And

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Speaker 1: of course, to go back to a previous episode, you're

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Speaker 1: kind of anchoring my expectations by throwing out without any

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Speaker 1: population data in my head about Greenland, like that's suddenly

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Speaker 1: all I have to go on. Oh yeah, that's interesting. Also,

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Speaker 1: it's so like it could be three thousand or it

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Speaker 1: could be like a million, and either you're sort of

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Speaker 1: moving your guests range toward fifty. So the thing they

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Speaker 1: point out is even though most people don't know what

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Speaker 1: the population of Greenland is, we're often willing, into some

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Speaker 1: extent able to make guesses as to whether statements like

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Speaker 1: this are true. So where does this semantic knowledge come from?

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Speaker 1: When we feel like we have knowledge to offer a

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Speaker 1: guess about what the population of Greenland is even when

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Speaker 1: we don't really know what is that what allows us

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Speaker 1: to judge these questions? And the authors note that frequency

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Speaker 1: is a really powerful variable in all kinds of judgments

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Speaker 1: we make about the world, so they hypothesize that quote

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Speaker 1: frequency might also serve as the major access route that

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Speaker 1: plausible statements have into our pool of general knowledge. So

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Speaker 1: the idea is that we build our knowledge base based

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Speaker 1: on how frequently we are exposed to ideas. You hear

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Speaker 1: an idea a lot, and that gets reinforced in the

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Speaker 1: knowledge base. You've never heard an idea before, or you

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Speaker 1: don't hear it a lot, it doesn't get reinforced and

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Speaker 1: it doesn't exist in the knowledge base. So here's the

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Speaker 1: experimental part. Researchers came up with a list of a

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Speaker 1: hundred and forty true statements and false statements, crafted so

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Speaker 1: they all sound plausible. Yeah, they could be true. You know,

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Speaker 1: the average person would be unsure whether or not they're true,

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Speaker 1: and the statements were on all kinds of subjects like geography,

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Speaker 1: arts and literature, history, sports, current events science. A few

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Speaker 1: examples of true statements included things like Cairo, Egypt has

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Speaker 1: a larger population than Chicago, Illinois, and French horn players

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Speaker 1: get cash bonuses to stay in the U. S. Army. Well,

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Speaker 1: i'd see it. I should have joined the army after

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Speaker 1: I'll see I was a french horn player really in

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Speaker 1: high school. Yeah, I didn't know that. What's it like

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Speaker 1: playing the French horn? It's just you know, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of spit and a lot of shoving your hand

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Speaker 1: up horns. That's it. Otherwise it's like playing a trumpet.

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Speaker 1: Now see I actually played trumpet, and it's a lot

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Speaker 1: less fun than what you're describing. Yeah, I mean, I

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Speaker 1: don't know. There is an elegance to the way you

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Speaker 1: hold it and you again, you have your hand in

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Speaker 1: the inside the horn. I don't know. Being a trumpet

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Speaker 1: player to me always felt like being a person who's

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Speaker 1: complaining at full volume. Yeah, yeah, there is. There's more

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Speaker 1: of an outward stance with the trumpet, right, you are

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Speaker 1: blasting outward, But in the French horn, you it's it's

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Speaker 1: more like you're playing music into yourself. That's quite beautiful,

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Speaker 1: more beautiful than any music I've ever played on the

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Speaker 1: French horn. Uh so we got to get back to

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Speaker 1: the study. Okay, So that's that's supposedly true. French horn

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Speaker 1: players at the time got cash bonuses to stay in

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Speaker 1: the U. S. Army. Examples of false statements where things

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Speaker 1: like the People's Republic of China was founded in nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty seven, who was actually nineteen forty nine, or the

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Speaker 1: copy Bara is the largest of the marsupials. That's not true.

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Speaker 1: The largest marcipial is the red kangaroo. The largest known

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Speaker 1: in the fossil record is this thing called the extinct

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Speaker 1: dip protodon. Now that in the capy bar is a rodent, right,

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Speaker 1: only is the capy bar and marsupial. I didn't even

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Speaker 1: look it up. I only know that because I go

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Speaker 1: to a lot of zoos these days. But it is

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Speaker 1: a mammal, it's a it's a rodent. It is a mammal,

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Speaker 1: and it is a rodent, not a marsupial. Well, there

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Speaker 1: we go. So it's wrong in multiple ways. So you

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Speaker 1: got this big list that came up with of true

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Speaker 1: and false statements, and all of them should sound plausible

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Speaker 1: to the average person, But most people are not going

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Speaker 1: to be likely to know for sure whether they're true

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Speaker 1: unless they just happen to have some special random knowledge

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Speaker 1: or expertise. And so researchers held three sessions with participants,

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Speaker 1: each separated by two weeks, and on each of the sessions,

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Speaker 1: the participants were played back a tape of a selection

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Speaker 1: of sixty recorded statements from that list, and the subjects

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Speaker 1: were asked to judge how confident they were that the

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Speaker 1: statements were true. And this was on a scale of

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Speaker 1: one to seven, with like four being uncertain, five being

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Speaker 1: possibly true, six being probably true, seven being definitely true.

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Speaker 1: And in each session, some of the statements were true,

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Speaker 1: some were false. But here's where the real magic happened.

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Speaker 1: At the second session and the third session. Each time,

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Speaker 1: subjects got a mix of new true and false statements

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Speaker 1: that they've never seen before, plus true and false statements

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Speaker 1: that they had already seen in the previous sessions. So

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Speaker 1: while most of the claims they saw were new, a

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Speaker 1: minority got repeated each time. And what the researchers found

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Speaker 1: was that whether a statement was true or false, the

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Speaker 1: more times the students saw it, the more they believed it.

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Speaker 1: So again, this would be this, this, this would be

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Speaker 1: the principle in action. The more they're hearing this, uh,

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Speaker 1: this this false fact, the more they're coming to believe

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Speaker 1: that it is true. Yeah, even in this constrained, kind

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Speaker 1: of weird experimental context where they're aware that some of

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Speaker 1: these facts are going to be false, it's not like

428
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:20,639
Speaker 1: they're being told this persuasively by a person trying to

429
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:24,080
Speaker 1: convince them. They're just reading this from a list of

430
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:27,040
Speaker 1: statements that are known to be either true or false.

431
00:23:27,080 --> 00:23:31,439
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no there's no persuasive aspect to this

432
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 1: at all, right, right, these are not politically charged or

433
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:37,399
Speaker 1: really charged by worldview at all. They're they're just plain

434
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:41,440
Speaker 1: neutral statements that really have very little interest to most people.

435
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:45,399
Speaker 1: Also probably, but what happened was whether the statement was

436
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:48,920
Speaker 1: true or false, people believed it more if they saw

437
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:52,199
Speaker 1: it more times. So I've got a little chart in

438
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:54,400
Speaker 1: here of what happened with the false statements. You can

439
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 1: have a look at Robert as you can see the

440
00:23:56,640 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 1: new false statements. The false statements people saw the very

441
00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 1: first time covered around you know, like four or four

442
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:06,119
Speaker 1: point one across all three sessions. That would correspond to

443
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:08,199
Speaker 1: people saying they're uncertain. I don't know. I don't know

444
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: whether French horn players get a cash bonus for staying

445
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 1: in the army and playing into the self and sticking

446
00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:16,400
Speaker 1: the hand up the horn. But in the second session

447
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: there repeated false statements jumped up from about four point

448
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,439
Speaker 1: over four point one to about four point five, and

449
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 1: then in the third session up again to about four

450
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,239
Speaker 1: point seven. And we only saw what happened with two

451
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: sessions who knows what have happened, what might have happened

452
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:36,120
Speaker 1: if you had continued adding more sessions. So just seeing

453
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 1: a statement more than once appeared to make it more believable,

454
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:41,800
Speaker 1: even though it wasn't true. And the pattern was roughly

455
00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:44,400
Speaker 1: the same for true statements, which isn't all that surprising

456
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 1: since the experiment was based on, you know, statements that

457
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:48,879
Speaker 1: people didn't know whether they were true or false to

458
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:52,280
Speaker 1: begin with. So the authors wrote in conclusion, quote, the

459
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 1: present research has demonstrated that the repetition of a plausible

460
00:24:55,920 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 1: statement increases a person's belief in the referentialvalidity or truth

461
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:03,359
Speaker 1: of that statement. I don't know why they had to

462
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 1: say referential validity. They could have just said truth. That's

463
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,639
Speaker 1: that's some science writing for you. Uh, in the truth

464
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:13,560
Speaker 1: of that statement. And indeed, the present experiment appears to

465
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:16,919
Speaker 1: lend empirical support to the idea that quote, if people

466
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 1: are told something often enough, they'll believe it. Uh So so, yeah,

467
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 1: this is this is the first real study to find

468
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:25,880
Speaker 1: this and a few other things the authors thought were

469
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: worth considering. Uh. The fact that this effect was displayed

470
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 1: in statements from a big, broad pool of different types

471
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 1: of subject matter suggests this is not extremely context dependent. Right,

472
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:38,399
Speaker 1: It's not just going to be political beliefs that are

473
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:41,399
Speaker 1: subject to this. It seems to be all different kinds

474
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: of statements in all different kinds of domains. Another thing

475
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,480
Speaker 1: they noted was that the effect was present for true

476
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 1: statements and false statements. Either way, if students saw the

477
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 1: claims more often, they believed them with greater confidence. But

478
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,919
Speaker 1: another takeaway is that the effect is not huge for

479
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:02,160
Speaker 1: false statements. Through exposures was roughly enough to get you

480
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: from I'm uncertain too. It's possibly true, but as we

481
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 1: mentioned before, how many this is just two or three

482
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 1: sessions right right? Right? Who knows what what would have

483
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: happened if maybe you had done this more times in

484
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:18,359
Speaker 1: a row, or if there had been other factors affecting

485
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: whether people were likely to believe these things to begin with,

486
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 1: say if they had valences to the person's political identity

487
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah, you know, as we're researching

488
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 1: this into and discussing it, I couldn't help but think

489
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 1: of notable examples of uh false stories about generally like

490
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,440
Speaker 1: like celebrities from the past, And I'm not going to

491
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: mention any of them specifically, Why not well, because you know,

492
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: they all tend to be a bit crude. There. There

493
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 1: are several of them about like tearing down various sort

494
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 1: of you know, pretty boy rockers or actors from the past,

495
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:55,679
Speaker 1: uh in in the in. The interesting thing about him

496
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:59,639
Speaker 1: is these are generally like pre internet um stories that

497
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:02,399
Speaker 1: had circulate the word of mouth or I think in

498
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:04,440
Speaker 1: one case there was talk of like a whole bunch

499
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 1: of of facts is going out in Hollywood where someone

500
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 1: was just basically just wanted to take somebody down because

501
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 1: they didn't like them. I remember, I think like ninth

502
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 1: grade here starting to hear this bizarre story about Richard

503
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 1: gear Yeah, that's that's the main one I'm thinking of.

504
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 1: And I think it basically comes down to Richard Geary's

505
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: a is a handsome, successful guy and and for a

506
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:26,920
Speaker 1: lot of people you want to like, really, you know,

507
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: knock him down and not you Yeah, and uh and

508
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 1: so when you encounter a bit of slander or libel

509
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 1: like that or uh, just a ridiculous story, you're gonna

510
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 1: be more inclined to believe it if you kind of

511
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 1: want it to be true, right or if you or

512
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, let screw that guy. I'm gonna I'm

513
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:48,680
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and believe this, or even if I

514
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:50,919
Speaker 1: don't believe it, I'm gonna pass it on. But either way,

515
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 1: whether or not you're predisposed to believe it's true, it

516
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: looks like this initial study at least provides evidence that

517
00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:00,239
Speaker 1: you would be more disposed to believe it's true in

518
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:03,880
Speaker 1: either case. Like, so, whatever you're starting point is, it's

519
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:06,919
Speaker 1: gonna nudge you up. Like if nothing else, it becomes

520
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:10,120
Speaker 1: word association. Like if you're not really a fan of say,

521
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:13,880
Speaker 1: Richard Gear's work, uh, and you can't name your your

522
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:16,160
Speaker 1: favorite Richard Gear film off the top of your head,

523
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: that might be the primary keyword that pops up when

524
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,920
Speaker 1: you hear his name. Yeah, it could be. Uh. Yeah.

525
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: So so this bizarre effect that we're talking about, where

526
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 1: hearing a fact repeated, even if you've got no good

527
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,640
Speaker 1: reason to believe it's true, just hearing it repeated causes

528
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: you to be more likely to believe it. This came

529
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 1: to be known first as the truth effect, and then

530
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: later on probably a better title was the illusory truth effect.

531
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: I think we should use the second one because otherwise

532
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: that makes it sound true. Yeah, it just makes it

533
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: sound like, yeah, if you if you repeat something, then

534
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: it is then it is true. There is no question anymore. So.

535
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 1: The basic version of the illusory truth effect is quote.

536
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 1: People are more likely to judge repeated statements as true

537
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 1: compared to new statements. In another way of putting it

538
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: is that, all other things being equal, you're more likely

539
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: to believe a claim if you've heard it before than

540
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 1: one you haven't heard before. And the more times you

541
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,479
Speaker 1: hear the claim, the more likely you are to believe it.

542
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 1: But so far we've just talked about one study, right,

543
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: this this one seven study. Uh, we can call it

544
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: the Star Wars study if you want. Okay, uh, the

545
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: Star Wars study. Here. It's a fairly small sample, just

546
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: one study. If you want to be skeptical and rigorous,

547
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: maybe especially because this backs up ful quisdom, which is

548
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 1: always something you should be careful about. We should see

549
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 1: if the effect has been replicated by other researchers, and boy,

550
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: howdy it has. That's right. This next one comes to

551
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 1: us from nineteen seventy nine Journal of Experimental Psychology, Human

552
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 1: Learning and Memory, the work of Frederick T. Bacon. Yeah,

553
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: this was called the Credibility of Repeated statements memory for trivia,

554
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 1: so Bacon performed he was trying to replicate this this effect.

555
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 1: He performed additional experiments to test the previous team's conclusions

556
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: and add some new on So his first experiment, you

557
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 1: got ninety eight undergrads and they had two sessions in

558
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: which they were asked to rate sentences as true or false,

559
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 1: with three weeks between the two sessions, and Bacon found

560
00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 1: that the repetition illusory truth effect was modulated by whether

561
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: the subjects consciously believed that a sentence had been repeated.

562
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 1: That is, if they remembered that they had seen the

563
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: sentence last time, they were more inclined to believe it.

564
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 1: If they believed they were seeing a sentence for the

565
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: first time, they were less likely to believe it. And

566
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: this was true regardless of the statements themselves. I can't

567
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: help but think of our modern version of this with

568
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: Facebook feed right, because you're inevitably, if you're your Facebook user,

569
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 1: or perhaps if you're a Twitter user or some other

570
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: social media you're you're scrolling down right and there are

571
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: a lot of sentences coming at you. Some you just

572
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 1: kind of read in passing, so maybe you don't read

573
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: at all. But are you actually stopping to really think

574
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 1: about what a particular headline or you know, or paragraph

575
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: is saying, or to just kind of scrolling in the

576
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 1: background of your mind. Yeah, And the results of this

577
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 1: one experiment here would seem to indicate if it has validity,

578
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 1: it would mean that the ones you stop and pay

579
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: attention to and make a memory about are the ones

580
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 1: you're more likely to believe later on. But then also

581
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: in another experiment, he had a group of sixty four

582
00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 1: undergrads and he replicated the illusory truth effect and found

583
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 1: that students believed repeated statements to be more credible even

584
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 1: if the students were informed that the statements were being repeated.

585
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 1: So you can directly tell somebody, Hey, I know, I

586
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:34,959
Speaker 1: just asked you if it was true or false that

587
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: zebras could automatically detach their own tongues and fling the

588
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: tongues at attacking hyenas. I asked you that same thing

589
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 1: three weeks ago. It may or may not be true.

590
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 1: And even in this case, repeating the statement still makes

591
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 1: them judge it to be more true than statements they're

592
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: seeing for the first time. So you can warn people

593
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: that something fishy is going on and they still fall

594
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: for it. So you could you could straight up share

595
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:03,959
Speaker 1: a piece of just undeniably fake news on social media

596
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 1: and and said, hey, guys, this is this is some

597
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:09,719
Speaker 1: fake news. This has been totally debunked. Um, you can

598
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 1: look it up on Snopes, etcetera. And that's still not

599
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: going to completely disarm the piece that you're sharing. Well,

600
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: we will talk, so I would say, yes, we will

601
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 1: talk more about that in the second episode where this

602
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: kind of thing comes into conflict with real world beliefs.

603
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: And just to be clear, I made up that zebra

604
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 1: thing that that wasn't find of the Bacon study. Okay,

605
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: I thought that would be clear. But that's number one,

606
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 1: not true. Number two as far as I know, not

607
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 1: one of the examples Bacon used. Right, Well, I'm sorry

608
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 1: you had to drag Zebras into all of this. Joe. Well,

609
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 1: you know, I like the idea of a weaponized tongue

610
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 1: that's gonna go beyond the X men. Surely that exists

611
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: in reality. Well yes, but but not with Zebras. No. No,

612
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 1: I guess that's amphibians and stuff. Okay, okay, So back

613
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 1: to the study, So Bacon says in his abstract quote.

614
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 1: It was further determined that statements that contradicted early ones

615
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 1: were rated as relatively true if misclassified as repetitions, but

616
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: that statements judged to be changed were rated as relatively false.

617
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 1: So even if you misremember that you saw something before,

618
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: you're more likely to believe it's true. It's kind of odd.

619
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 1: That makes you wonder, what is the initial uh, what's

620
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: the initial stimulus that caused you to misremember that you

621
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:25,560
Speaker 1: had seen it before. Well, as we've discussed on the

622
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: show before, I mean, there are multiple ways that false

623
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 1: memories can be can be encoded. Oh yeah, absolutely. So

624
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: Bacon concludes that basically, people are predisposed to believe statements

625
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: that affirm existing knowledge and to disbelieve statements that contradict

626
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: existing knowledge. That's not all that unusual, right, But but

627
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: it's specifically the repetition effect that seems to be playing

628
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: a role here. Let's take a look at another study.

629
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 1: How about nine two Maryan Schwartz Repetition and Rated truth

630
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 1: Value of Statements from the American Journal of Psychology. So

631
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: Schwartz here conducted two experiments on what psychologists were by

632
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 1: this time calling the truth effect, what we're calling the

633
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 1: illusory truth effect UM. So experiment one, you get a

634
00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 1: group of subjects and they rate claims on a seven

635
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: point truth value scale. Just like in the first study,

636
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 1: the Star Wars study, the seventy seven study, UM and

637
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: a different group of subjects rated the same statements on

638
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: a seven point scale of how familiar they were with

639
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:27,120
Speaker 1: the statements before the experiment started. How familiar are you

640
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 1: with this? Repetition increased both ratings, So both pre experimental

641
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:35,839
Speaker 1: familiarity as well as the perceived truth value, they both

642
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:38,840
Speaker 1: went up when people saw them more than once. That's

643
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:42,959
Speaker 1: not surprising. Again the replication and then also the fact

644
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: that you have seen something before, we'll tend to make

645
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:48,319
Speaker 1: you more familiar with it. Then you've got another experiment here.

646
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:52,239
Speaker 1: Second one replicated the illusory truth effect. Again found that

647
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: it didn't matter whether you mixed up repeated statements that

648
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 1: people had seen before with new statements or only showed

649
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 1: them repeated statement. Either way, belief and repeated statements went up.

650
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 1: And this was done so that they could rule out

651
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:07,839
Speaker 1: the possibility they're thinking, you know, maybe it's only by

652
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:11,399
Speaker 1: contrast with new and unfamiliar statements that repeated ones seem

653
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 1: more credible. That is not the case either way you

654
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 1: do it. If you've seen it before, you believe it more.

655
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:19,839
Speaker 1: And so this study has taken as evidence that the

656
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 1: feeling of familiarity with an idea might be an important part,

657
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: or even the most important part, of how we judge

658
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 1: something as true or plausible. But we should shift to

659
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: asking the question of why why would increasing familiarity with

660
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: the statement through repetition make it seem more true to us?

661
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:41,920
Speaker 1: It makes me think about this passage from Wittgenstein in

662
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:45,440
Speaker 1: his philosophical Investigations, about how absurd it would be to

663
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: use repetition of a mental representation as evidence that the

664
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: representation is correct. He writes, quote for example, I don't

665
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 1: know if I've remembered the time of departure of a

666
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 1: train right, And to check it, I call to mind

667
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: how a age of the timetable looked. Is it the

668
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:06,320
Speaker 1: same here? No, For this process has got to produce

669
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:09,800
Speaker 1: a memory which is actually correct. If the mental image

670
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:13,600
Speaker 1: of the timetable could not itself be tested for correctness,

671
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 1: how could it confirm the correctness of the first memory.

672
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 1: As if someone were to buy several copies of the

673
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 1: morning paper to assure himself that what it said was true.

674
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 1: And that's that's kind of what we're doing. Like he's

675
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:28,400
Speaker 1: talking about mental images, but the general point is a

676
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:31,960
Speaker 1: good one. We're essentially buying several copies of the same

677
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:36,839
Speaker 1: newspaper to to increase our belief that what the newspaper

678
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 1: says is actually accurate. Now, one it possible interpretation that

679
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 1: comes to mind is just like the idea of say,

680
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 1: walking us picking out stepping stones to cross a creek. Right,

681
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 1: you step to one stone and it doesn't slip out

682
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 1: from underneath you, and so you use that too to

683
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:57,799
Speaker 1: make your way across the other stones and hopefully make

684
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 1: it across the entire creek without getting your feet wet

685
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:03,840
Speaker 1: or falling in being swept down stream to the to

686
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 1: the waterfall. So to what extent are we just like

687
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 1: trusting anything that hasn't resulted in catastrophe thus fire? Well,

688
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: I would say that it would make more sense for

689
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 1: that to be true with sort of embodied physical experimental

690
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: knowledge about the world than it would for that to

691
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:25,239
Speaker 1: make sense for that to apply to semantic knowledge of

692
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,920
Speaker 1: things people tell us. Or maybe our brains just aren't

693
00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 1: good at differentiating between semantic knowledge that's imparted through words.

694
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:35,160
Speaker 1: You know, maybe somebody saying all those stones will hold

695
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:37,360
Speaker 1: you up is encoded by the brain in sort of

696
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 1: the same way as testing out one stone at a time. Uh, yeah,

697
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: I don't know. So this is what we should explore

698
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 1: for the rest of the episode. I think, why should

699
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: repeatedly exposing ourselves to the same information increase our confidence

700
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:53,800
Speaker 1: in it if we didn't have good reasons to believe

701
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 1: it the first time. It's clear that this is what's happening,

702
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: But why does it happen this way? All right, we'll

703
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:00,919
Speaker 1: take one more break and when we im back, well

704
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: we'll jump into this. Thank thank Alright, we're back. So

705
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: we're asking this question of why repeatedly exposing ourselves to

706
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:14,359
Speaker 1: the same information would increase our confidence if we didn't

707
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: have good reasons to believe the information the first time.

708
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:20,320
Speaker 1: It's clear from several experiments that this is what happens

709
00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 1: in our brains if if a statement is repeated, we

710
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:26,239
Speaker 1: believe it more. But why do our brains work that way?

711
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:30,839
Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily make sense. Yeah, And one possible interpretation

712
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 1: that came to mind is, of course, we we've touched

713
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:35,919
Speaker 1: on this before that that we're all social animals. Yeah,

714
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 1: so I've I've wondered if there this is a byproduct

715
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 1: of the drive to fit in with a given group

716
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: or tribe, that there's ultimately a survival advantage and getting

717
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:47,799
Speaker 1: along with the group, and so does that bleed over

718
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 1: into highly repeated or highly circulated lies or untruths. So

719
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 1: basically like, if there is a lie going around in

720
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 1: the group, you'll get along with the group better if

721
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:00,120
Speaker 1: you just accept the lie. Yeah, And I'm not know

722
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: certainly after looking at more of the research, I'm not

723
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:06,319
Speaker 1: arguing that that is the core um mechanism involved here.

724
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 1: This is worth exploring that. But but I but I

725
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 1: do like wonder to what extent that is that's playing

726
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:12,799
Speaker 1: a role, because you we we all have our our

727
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,360
Speaker 1: groups that we are involved in, our our our friends,

728
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 1: our family, or our work groups, our social media groups

729
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:20,800
Speaker 1: are are sort of echo chambers that we find online.

730
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: And uh, does it make you more susceptible to the

731
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:29,799
Speaker 1: lie just because there is this this ingrained need to

732
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: fit in with that group too, to share the same

733
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 1: values and to put it all in the prehistoric framework,

734
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 1: to to continue to have access to the fire and

735
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:41,879
Speaker 1: the and the feast. Yeah, I think I think that's

736
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:45,160
Speaker 1: the possibility worth exploring. Let's let's take a look at it. Okay, Well,

737
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: I started looking into this a little bit, and I

738
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 1: ran across a paper titled the Evolution of Misbelief, Misbelief,

739
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,880
Speaker 1: Misbelief from two thousand nine. This is published in Behavioral

740
00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:58,760
Speaker 1: and Brain Sciences, and it was by Ryan T. McKay

741
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 1: and Daniel in it. Oh, Daniel's in it all right.

742
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:06,239
Speaker 1: So they approached the following I guess you could call

743
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 1: a paradox in the paper. Given that we evolve to

744
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,400
Speaker 1: thrive in a fact based world, what other kind of

745
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 1: world could there? Exactly? Yeah, I mean, we we're dealing

746
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 1: with with with actual reality here. But but given that

747
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 1: we've evolved to thrive in this world, shouldn't true beliefs

748
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:26,839
Speaker 1: be adaptive and misbeliefs be maladaptive. It's clear that in

749
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,839
Speaker 1: many cases, probably most cases, that is the way things are. Right.

750
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: Believing that you are able to fly off the edge

751
00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 1: of a cliff is not good for you. Believing that

752
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:39,840
Speaker 1: polar bears want to cuddle with you is not advantageous.

753
00:40:40,120 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: Holding false beliefs like this doesn't work out well for people. Yeah,

754
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 1: they're they're they're reckless and dangerous misbeliefs that clearly like,

755
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:50,840
Speaker 1: if you reach the point where you're believing in that,

756
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 1: you're going to go extinct. So it's obvious that there

757
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: is going to be at least some kind of major

758
00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 1: selection pressure in the brain for shaping brains that believe

759
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:04,240
Speaker 1: sly true things, unless there are cases where believing something

760
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 1: that's false outweighs the negative the drawbacks essentially. So here

761
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: here's a here's what they wrote quote on this assumption,

762
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:16,440
Speaker 1: our beliefs about the world are essentially tools that enable

763
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 1: us to act effectively in the world. Moreover, to be reliable,

764
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: such tools must be produced in us, it is assumed

765
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:28,400
Speaker 1: by systems designed by evolution to be truth aiming and

766
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:32,760
Speaker 1: hence barring miracles, these systems must be designed to generate

767
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:37,480
Speaker 1: grounded beliefs. A system for generating ungrounded but mostly true

768
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 1: beliefs would be an oracle, as impossible as a perpetual

769
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:43,440
Speaker 1: motion machine. I like that. Yeah, So there's got to

770
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 1: be like a grounding procedure through which we can discover

771
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:49,480
Speaker 1: true beliefs if we're going to have them. Otherwise we're

772
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 1: just talking about magic. But we have to account for

773
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 1: these varying levels of misbelief and self deception in the

774
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:58,840
Speaker 1: human experience. They write, if evolution has designed us to

775
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:02,560
Speaker 1: appraise the world accurately and to form true beliefs, how

776
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 1: are we to account for the routine exceptions to this

777
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 1: rule instances of misbelief? Most of us at times believe

778
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:13,560
Speaker 1: propositions that end up being disproved. Many of us produce

779
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 1: beliefs that others consider obviously false to begin with, and

780
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:19,880
Speaker 1: some of his form beliefs that are not just manifestly

781
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:24,359
Speaker 1: but bizarrely false. How can this be? Are all these

782
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 1: misbeliefs just accidents, incidences of pathology or breakdown, or at

783
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 1: best undesirable but tolerable byproducts. Might some of them contrat

784
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 1: the default presumption be adaptive in and of themselves. I

785
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:41,080
Speaker 1: like this distinction they're making. I think this is actually useful.

786
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:44,759
Speaker 1: So they're breaking misbeliefs down into two basic kinds of

787
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:49,280
Speaker 1: categories right right that they're talking about one those resulting

788
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:52,280
Speaker 1: from a breakdown in the normal functioning of the belief

789
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 1: formation system. This would be delusions malfunctions, So things like

790
00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 1: face blindness or or catard syndrow. Okay, this is when

791
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:05,959
Speaker 1: the brain is creating incorrect beliefs because it's not working right,

792
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 1: it's not doing what it's supposed to be doing. But

793
00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:12,360
Speaker 1: then the second category are those that are arising in

794
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:16,520
Speaker 1: the normal course of that system's operations, so beliefs based

795
00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:19,879
Speaker 1: on incomplete or inaccurate information. These would be this would

796
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 1: be a case of manufacture. And we'll get into examples

797
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: of this in a second. There could be tons of examples.

798
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: One that comes to my mind that would be an

799
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:28,879
Speaker 1: example of this would be optical illusions. When you when

800
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:31,800
Speaker 1: you witness an optical illusion, you have a false belief

801
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:33,799
Speaker 1: that has been generated by your brain. But it's not

802
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 1: because your brain is doing anything wrong. It's just because,

803
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:40,160
Speaker 1: like it's being exploited by a situation that's not part

804
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:43,839
Speaker 1: of its normal what it normally needs to do. Right. Yeah,

805
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:46,279
Speaker 1: they point out that it's it's easy to think of

806
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: these in light of of an artifact. Is it failing

807
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:51,200
Speaker 1: due to a limitation in the design in a way

808
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: that is culpable or tolerable. Examples here being say a

809
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: clock that doesn't keep time keep good time versus a

810
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 1: toaster of and that doesn't keep time at all. You

811
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 1: can't expect the toast drivant to keep time unless it's

812
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 1: got a time right. Well, yes, but that's true. Yes,

813
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:08,240
Speaker 1: I would have said a purple donkey built by muscular

814
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: elves that doesn't keep because he wouldn't even expect yes now.

815
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: But but it gets more complicated when you go into

816
00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 1: the biological realm, because what counts as immune function, dysfunction,

817
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: a pathogen infection, but what it would have Ultimately, the

818
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:26,120
Speaker 1: immune system airs by defending the body against say, a

819
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:30,720
Speaker 1: transplant organ, and may ensure its survival because the body

820
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: is going to reject that attempt, to reject that that

821
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 1: heart transplant. Uh, even though the heart transplant could save

822
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:39,719
Speaker 1: the patient, will save the patients. So it seems like

823
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 1: in order to understand this, you almost have to understand

824
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: the context, right right. They say that they invoked the

825
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 1: work of Ruth Garrett Milliken, who in saying that we

826
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 1: can't look to an organ's current properties or disposition, we

827
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 1: have to look to its history. That makes sense to me.

828
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: Organ transplants, of course, are not part of our evolutionary history.

829
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 1: So this is just the body function normally in rejecting

830
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 1: the invader heart. Right, The body is not malfunctioning is

831
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 1: doing what it's supposed to do. We're just throwing a

832
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:09,799
Speaker 1: situation at it that it's not prepared to deal with. Yeah,

833
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: so that brings us to the more human examples, you know,

834
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: lies and uh and so forth. Oh, that's interesting. So

835
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:20,560
Speaker 1: a lie could be like a thing that our bodies

836
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:24,040
Speaker 1: were not really prepared to deal with very well, which

837
00:45:24,080 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 1: is weird to think of because of how common lies are. Yeah,

838
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 1: they right. However adaptive it may be for us to

839
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 1: believe truly, it may be adaptive for other parties if

840
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 1: we believe falsely. Now that and of course this is

841
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 1: something just to to interject here, I think this is

842
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 1: something that we ultimately see holds holds true with other animals,

843
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 1: like the role of deception of course in u in

844
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 1: in in certainly in hunting, in defense, and even acquiring mates.

845
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 1: They continue. An evolutionary arms race of deceptive ploys and

846
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:59,120
Speaker 1: counterploys may thus ensue. In some cases, the other parties

847
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:02,520
Speaker 1: in question may not even be animate agents, but cultural

848
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:05,879
Speaker 1: traits or systems. Although such cases are interesting in their

849
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:09,440
Speaker 1: own right, the adaptive misbeliefs we pursue in this article

850
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:13,360
Speaker 1: are beneficial to their consumers. Misbeliefs that evolved to the

851
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:17,200
Speaker 1: detriment of their believers are not our quarries, so they

852
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:20,360
Speaker 1: stress the difference between beliefs and what they referred to

853
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 1: as a leafs uh and uh. So for instance, if

854
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: I'm freaked out by tall buildings, I might not believe

855
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:29,840
Speaker 1: that I'm going to fall off, but I might a

856
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,640
Speaker 1: lieve that I'm going to fall off. They leave as

857
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 1: in like like a moral yes. Yeah, And in this

858
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:38,360
Speaker 1: case it seems to be something that is tall, a

859
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 1: tolerated side effect of an imperfect system. But it's not

860
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 1: McKay and Dinnett that end up bringing up the illusory

861
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:49,759
Speaker 1: truth effect, but psychologists Pascal boy Yer in commentary on

862
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 1: the paper. Uh, this particular paper from from McKay and

863
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:55,920
Speaker 1: dine Itt, by the ways, available online. I'll try to

864
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 1: include a link to it on the landing page for

865
00:46:57,520 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 1: this episode. But in his commentary, a boy A rights

866
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:06,240
Speaker 1: dramatic memory distortion seem to influence belief fixation. For instance,

867
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 1: in the illusory truth effect, statements read several times are

868
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:12,920
Speaker 1: more likely rated as true than statements read only once.

869
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:16,759
Speaker 1: People who repeatedly imagine performing a particular action may end

870
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 1: up believing they actually performed it. Oh, yeah, this is

871
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:21,840
Speaker 1: something I've read before. If yeah, if so, if you

872
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:24,879
Speaker 1: just like have people walk through a task in their

873
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 1: mind and then ask them later if they remember doing it.

874
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 1: A lot of times they remember physically acting it out. Yeah,

875
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 1: I've certainly had this occur with me, Like There'll be

876
00:47:34,120 --> 00:47:36,120
Speaker 1: something I need to do and I'm thinking about doing it,

877
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:39,759
Speaker 1: and then I can't remember if I actually carried it out. Uh.

878
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: And this is uh, this is called imagination inflation. He writes.

879
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:48,200
Speaker 1: Misinformation paradigms show that most people are vulnerable to memory revision.

880
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:53,920
Speaker 1: When plausible information is implied by experimenters in social contagion protocols,

881
00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:56,040
Speaker 1: people tend to believe they actually saw what is in

882
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:59,640
Speaker 1: fact suggested by the confederate with whom they watched a video.

883
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 1: So that he's just listing lots of the ways that

884
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:06,280
Speaker 1: we are end up with false beliefs. There's a plethora

885
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:11,279
Speaker 1: of examples of mechanisms for putting false beliefs in our brains. Yeah.

886
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:13,000
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of territory covered in this

887
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:17,359
Speaker 1: paper in the attached responses, but I can't I come

888
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:20,360
Speaker 1: back to the sort of key reason that I sought

889
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:23,480
Speaker 1: it out like, like, when is self self deception helpful?

890
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:27,320
Speaker 1: Is it necessary for the deception of others? It doesn't

891
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 1: quite seem to be, like, you don't have to believe

892
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 1: the lie yourself to tell someone else the lie, regardless

893
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 1: of what telling the lie repeatedly might do to you. Well, so, boy,

894
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: he's skeptical of the idea, right, So is he basically

895
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:44,880
Speaker 1: saying like, you don't want to overstate the the adaptiveness

896
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 1: of believing lies, but yeah, he drives sound that memory

897
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 1: need only be as good as the advantage and decision

898
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,799
Speaker 1: making it affords. Okay, so he's essentially going for the

899
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:59,319
Speaker 1: byproduct thing for most most beliefs He's he's saying like, look,

900
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 1: you know, memory needs to do certain things, and in

901
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 1: the course of doing those things, it may generate some

902
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:07,880
Speaker 1: false beliefs. We don't have to assume that those false

903
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:11,960
Speaker 1: beliefs themselves are beneficial, right, Yeah. And And to come

904
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 1: back to McKay and Dinnett, they point out that natural

905
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:17,479
Speaker 1: selection doesn't seem to care about truth. It only cares

906
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 1: about reproductive success, so that there are various cases where

907
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:24,239
Speaker 1: a particular false belief or misbelief is seemingly adaptive. You

908
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 1: believe in a non existent fire god. Okay, but say

909
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:31,680
Speaker 1: that its laws inhibit overt selfish behavior gets you in

910
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:33,879
Speaker 1: trouble and not work out for you in the long run.

911
00:49:34,239 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 1: So in that case, you have an adaptive misbelief. Now,

912
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:40,319
Speaker 1: if the fire God wherever to actually appear, then this

913
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:43,040
Speaker 1: would be an adaptive belief. But then there are arguably

914
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 1: a whole host of other false ideas that seem adaptive,

915
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:50,879
Speaker 1: positive self deceptions about ability, the placebo effect for instance. Um,

916
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:54,360
Speaker 1: they bring up the self theories of intelligence, entity and

917
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: incremental view of intelligence. Um, this being like, m am,

918
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 1: I born with a certain in uh intellect? Or do

919
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 1: I develop it over time? And how those different core

920
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 1: beliefs can affect your effectiveness in life Like doesn't mean like, oh,

921
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 1: I've got to work really hard in order to stay

922
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:14,840
Speaker 1: stay on top of this, or is it a situation

923
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: where oh, I'm I'm brilliant, I can accomplish anything. And and

924
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 1: and of course I think you can argue for pitfalls

925
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 1: on both sides. And of course there's always the optimal

926
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:25,799
Speaker 1: margin of illusion in play, which comes to us from

927
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:29,720
Speaker 1: Roy f Ball moister. Uh. And you know, ultimately crazy

928
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:32,279
Speaker 1: over confidence as we do as we discussed is going

929
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: to lead to extinction? Right, you don't want to cuddle

930
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:36,840
Speaker 1: the polar bear. Right, cuddling the polar bear thinking you

931
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:40,800
Speaker 1: can fly? Uh, these are going to lead you falling

932
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 1: off the side of a mountain or winding up in

933
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 1: a polar bear's tummy. Yeah. Now, I could certainly understand

934
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 1: the idea of socially adaptive misbeliefs. I think that thing.

935
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:52,920
Speaker 1: Those things definitely do exist, and in some cases there

936
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 1: might be some overlap with the types of things that

937
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 1: get repeated so often, Like reasons for believing untrue things

938
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:03,960
Speaker 1: can also compound each other. I mean, I'm I'm about

939
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:06,760
Speaker 1: to explain why I think false beliefs gained through exposure

940
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:10,319
Speaker 1: and repetition are not adaptive in themselves. But you can

941
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:13,640
Speaker 1: have more than one reason for believing something that's untrue.

942
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:17,239
Speaker 1: Think about objectively untrue statements that get repeated, as we

943
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:20,280
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, in a political context. The evidence

944
00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:23,120
Speaker 1: shows that we believe them partially because of how often

945
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:27,320
Speaker 1: they repeated, but there's also social cognition and also identity

946
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:30,479
Speaker 1: protective cognition. In other words, we tend to believe things

947
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:33,520
Speaker 1: that members of our political tribe and social in groups, say,

948
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:37,719
Speaker 1: and for social cohesion reasons that that is adaptive for us.

949
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 1: We also believe things that validate our sense of personal identity.

950
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:44,280
Speaker 1: But I think it's pretty clear that that these types

951
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:48,759
Speaker 1: of effects can work in a nasty perverse tag team format,

952
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:53,000
Speaker 1: boosting and complementing one another. But even if we we

953
00:51:53,080 --> 00:51:57,359
Speaker 1: put aside these complementary effects, put aside uh social and

954
00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:01,400
Speaker 1: identity protective cognition, put those aside, and just focus on

955
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 1: the explanation for the illusory truth effect and repetition, there's

956
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:08,279
Speaker 1: a really interesting thing that comes out. And this is

957
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:12,680
Speaker 1: based on the idea of processing fluency, which is it's

958
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:15,440
Speaker 1: a it's a concept that is way more interesting than

959
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:19,360
Speaker 1: the name would let you believe. So the dominant explanation

960
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 1: for the illusory truth effect in the psychology literature, which

961
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 1: we're about to get into, um fits into this byproduct

962
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:29,759
Speaker 1: category that we were just talking about. Based on all

963
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:33,320
Speaker 1: I've read, it seems the informed majority opinion of psychologists

964
00:52:33,719 --> 00:52:36,000
Speaker 1: is that the illusion of truth that we get from

965
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 1: exposure and repetition is an unfortunate byproduct of generally useful

966
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:44,720
Speaker 1: cognitive heuristic. Now, a heuristic, as we've talked about before,

967
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:48,000
Speaker 1: is a mental shortcut. It's a fast and cheap trick

968
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 1: that the brain uses to arrive at a judgment or

969
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:54,600
Speaker 1: produce some kind of result without using too much effort.

970
00:52:54,840 --> 00:52:57,680
Speaker 1: And it's it's worth driving home that our brains need

971
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:01,520
Speaker 1: fast and cheap tricks. Yeah, brains are very energy hungry.

972
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:04,319
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, there's only there's only so much power to

973
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:06,920
Speaker 1: go around there. So it's, uh, it's kind of has

974
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:09,719
Speaker 1: to hold everything together with a bunch of of of

975
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 1: cheap tricks. Yeah, so it works something like this. Let's

976
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:15,720
Speaker 1: let's go on, let's go with it. Assume that on balance,

977
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 1: true statements get uttered more often than lies. As cynical

978
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 1: as we like to be, that's probably true, right, True

979
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:26,480
Speaker 1: statements are generally more useful to people. Also, there's a

980
00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:30,440
Speaker 1: sort of convergence effect where there's only one way for

981
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 1: a true statement to be true, but there are lots

982
00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:36,080
Speaker 1: of different ways to say a lie about the subject

983
00:53:36,160 --> 00:53:38,840
Speaker 1: of that statement. So like, true statements on the subject

984
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:42,319
Speaker 1: are going to be more consistent usually than lies about

985
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:44,400
Speaker 1: the subject because a lie about the subject could be

986
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:49,719
Speaker 1: anything well, and also lies lies it in large part

987
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:53,040
Speaker 1: have to be believable. Like think about the various true

988
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:56,239
Speaker 1: statements and uh and false statements that might be uttered

989
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:59,799
Speaker 1: during the course of a given day at work. Yeah, somebody, hey,

990
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:02,280
Speaker 1: we're the bathroom, you know, it's a new building. Say.

991
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:04,719
Speaker 1: Then they're they're gonna probably say, oh, it's over there,

992
00:54:04,760 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 1: and they're they're they're probably going to tell you the truth.

993
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:10,279
Speaker 1: Generally does not serve people well to lie about the

994
00:54:10,280 --> 00:54:12,600
Speaker 1: location of the bathroom, right because you're gonna find out

995
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:14,359
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna say, hey, why did you tell

996
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:16,560
Speaker 1: me the bathroom is over there and not over there?

997
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:21,400
Speaker 1: Are you insane? But then some of the false statements

998
00:54:21,440 --> 00:54:24,279
Speaker 1: you're liable to hear might be, hey, if you uh,

999
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 1: I don't know, let's see have you started on that

1000
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 1: report yet, Let's do on Friday, And they'll say, oh, yeah,

1001
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:30,359
Speaker 1: I've got it, I've got it taken care of. I'll

1002
00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:32,640
Speaker 1: get it to you on Friday. You know. There there's

1003
00:54:32,719 --> 00:54:34,239
Speaker 1: there are a lot of statements like that that are

1004
00:54:34,560 --> 00:54:36,799
Speaker 1: that ultimately you can't really check in on, like you're

1005
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 1: just gonna have to take their word for it, right,

1006
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:40,879
Speaker 1: and that kind of lie. Yeah, you'll never find out,

1007
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:44,279
Speaker 1: you know, yeah exactly. Or I can't come into work

1008
00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:46,440
Speaker 1: today because I'm sick. Well, all right, I'm you know,

1009
00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:48,560
Speaker 1: we're not going to ask for a doctor's note. You

1010
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:51,160
Speaker 1: might be lying, you might not, but it's just kind

1011
00:54:51,160 --> 00:54:54,040
Speaker 1: of a gimme on that situation. Yeah, that's another reason

1012
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:57,960
Speaker 1: that we're more likely to be exposed to true statements generally,

1013
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:00,320
Speaker 1: or at least that were more likely to detect true

1014
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:04,720
Speaker 1: statements generally, because false statements are harder to verify, usually

1015
00:55:04,719 --> 00:55:07,200
Speaker 1: by design of the person making them. So you're able

1016
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:09,479
Speaker 1: to find yourself in an environment it's mostly built out

1017
00:55:09,560 --> 00:55:15,400
Speaker 1: of true statements and believable lies. Right, So on this assumption,

1018
00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:18,840
Speaker 1: you know you're you're in a hurry, and your brain

1019
00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:22,959
Speaker 1: it is not designed to consume infinite energy. It wants

1020
00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:25,319
Speaker 1: to try to be efficient. You don't have time to

1021
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:28,239
Speaker 1: evaluate all claims rigorously. I mean, even no matter how

1022
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:32,319
Speaker 1: skeptical you want to be, we can confirm this eventually.

1023
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:34,959
Speaker 1: You are just not going to have time to look

1024
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:37,439
Speaker 1: into everything you believe. You're just gonna have to take

1025
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:40,440
Speaker 1: somebody's word for it. It's not practical to try to

1026
00:55:40,520 --> 00:55:44,000
Speaker 1: live by verifying every single belief. Oh yeah, I mean

1027
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:47,360
Speaker 1: it would. You've just got to have something firm underneath

1028
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:49,399
Speaker 1: your feet in order to proceed. Oh yeah, you've got

1029
00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:51,279
Speaker 1: a bedrock, but then you've also got to have you

1030
00:55:51,440 --> 00:55:53,759
Speaker 1: just I mean, you take somebody's word on where the

1031
00:55:53,800 --> 00:55:57,680
Speaker 1: bathroom is, like, you're not gonna try to fact check them,

1032
00:55:57,719 --> 00:55:59,640
Speaker 1: you know, well, I guess you will by trying to

1033
00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:02,000
Speaker 1: go there. But other other things like that, mundane things

1034
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:04,480
Speaker 1: people tell you throughout the day, You're just gonna have

1035
00:56:04,560 --> 00:56:07,879
Speaker 1: to believe them. There's just no, it doesn't make any

1036
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:10,520
Speaker 1: sense to try to verify all of it because you

1037
00:56:10,520 --> 00:56:15,320
Speaker 1: don't have time. So therefore, an easy shortcut for assuming

1038
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 1: that a statement is more likely true is have I

1039
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:22,440
Speaker 1: heard this statement before? Statements they get uttered more often

1040
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:26,520
Speaker 1: are more likely to be from that class of true statements. Okay,

1041
00:56:26,600 --> 00:56:29,160
Speaker 1: I can roll with that. Now, there's another type of

1042
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:33,200
Speaker 1: parallel thinking that says, uh, that says, you know, also,

1043
00:56:33,440 --> 00:56:36,400
Speaker 1: it's actually more difficult to disbelieve something than it is

1044
00:56:36,440 --> 00:56:40,000
Speaker 1: to believe it because and I don't know if this

1045
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:42,320
Speaker 1: is really confirmed or if this is just one theory

1046
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:45,200
Speaker 1: about how the information processing in the brain works. But

1047
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:49,359
Speaker 1: just as a quick tangent, there is a model of

1048
00:56:49,400 --> 00:56:52,400
Speaker 1: thinking that says, Okay, to believe a statement is true,

1049
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:54,680
Speaker 1: to hear a statement and say I believe it is

1050
00:56:54,719 --> 00:56:57,800
Speaker 1: just one step in the brain. To hear a statement

1051
00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:00,840
Speaker 1: and reject it as false is a two step procedure

1052
00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:03,399
Speaker 1: where first you have to hear it and believe it

1053
00:57:03,480 --> 00:57:06,080
Speaker 1: to understand it, and then you have to go back

1054
00:57:06,120 --> 00:57:08,960
Speaker 1: and revise what you just did and say, but it's

1055
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:12,200
Speaker 1: not true. Yeah. It's ultimately like a king setting down

1056
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:15,360
Speaker 1: at a banquet table. Right, is the king to simply

1057
00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:19,800
Speaker 1: eat every uh, every food item on the plate and

1058
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 1: trust in it and trust that he's not going to

1059
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:25,400
Speaker 1: be poisoned or is he going to independently test each thing?

1060
00:57:25,560 --> 00:57:28,440
Speaker 1: Have the food taster come up, put the mid transfer

1061
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:31,760
Speaker 1: this goblet of wine into the rhinoceros horn, etcetera. Hold

1062
00:57:31,800 --> 00:57:34,600
Speaker 1: the magic crystal over this plate of beans. And you know,

1063
00:57:34,640 --> 00:57:37,640
Speaker 1: another thing that came to mind was some of our

1064
00:57:37,640 --> 00:57:40,760
Speaker 1: discussions we've had in the past about consciousness and imagination

1065
00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 1: as a simulation engine, that we use our imagination to

1066
00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:50,360
Speaker 1: mentally simulate possible outcomes so that we can best choose

1067
00:57:50,440 --> 00:57:52,720
Speaker 1: how we're going to react to the world. And when

1068
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:54,880
Speaker 1: I'm presented with something that might be a lie or

1069
00:57:55,200 --> 00:57:57,800
Speaker 1: or of some sort of untruth or a bit of

1070
00:57:57,800 --> 00:58:02,200
Speaker 1: of misinformation. I still can't help but imagine it, right,

1071
00:58:02,240 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 1: I'm having to create a mental picture of it. Um

1072
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:08,720
Speaker 1: in a sense, you're kind of believing it for the moment. Yeah, yeah,

1073
00:58:08,720 --> 00:58:11,320
Speaker 1: because I have to simulate it in my head. And

1074
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:13,600
Speaker 1: in cases of people who can form mental pictures, you

1075
00:58:13,600 --> 00:58:16,520
Speaker 1: have to form those mental pictures and uh, now you know,

1076
00:58:16,560 --> 00:58:19,280
Speaker 1: And I imagine a lot of this what shakes out

1077
00:58:19,320 --> 00:58:23,320
Speaker 1: after has to do with an individual's particular worldview. But

1078
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:26,440
Speaker 1: I wonder if in some cases it's like a type

1079
00:58:26,520 --> 00:58:29,320
Speaker 1: one error in cognition, you know, and it's a false positive.

1080
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:34,280
Speaker 1: Uh that uh, that I I'm imagining this is a

1081
00:58:34,320 --> 00:58:37,680
Speaker 1: possible outcome, and then maybe I'm more inclined to believe

1082
00:58:37,760 --> 00:58:40,720
Speaker 1: it just so that I can keep it from harming me. Yeah.

1083
00:58:40,760 --> 00:58:43,520
Speaker 1: I think that's a very very reasonable way of imagining it.

1084
00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:46,240
Speaker 1: But so here's where we get into the final part

1085
00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:49,160
Speaker 1: of our discussion today, which is the idea of what

1086
00:58:49,200 --> 00:58:53,040
Speaker 1: I mentioned a minute ago, processing fluency. So processing fluency

1087
00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:57,200
Speaker 1: just means how easy it is to process incoming information.

1088
00:58:58,080 --> 00:59:00,960
Speaker 1: And you wouldn't believe the research, John, how many of

1089
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:04,200
Speaker 1: our decisions and mental outcomes seem to be based at

1090
00:59:04,240 --> 00:59:08,840
Speaker 1: least in part on processing fluency. The brain really really

1091
00:59:08,920 --> 00:59:12,360
Speaker 1: likes things to be easy. It really likes things to

1092
00:59:12,400 --> 00:59:16,200
Speaker 1: be to go smooth, to not be too difficult. Uh So,

1093
00:59:16,720 --> 00:59:20,000
Speaker 1: to start off, based on existing research, it definitely seems

1094
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:23,800
Speaker 1: true that people have an easier time processing statements and

1095
00:59:23,880 --> 00:59:27,960
Speaker 1: information they've heard before. In fact, Robert, you probably know

1096
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:32,080
Speaker 1: this from direct experience. Like a familiar statement, when used

1097
00:59:32,080 --> 00:59:34,240
Speaker 1: in the context of a sentence or an argument, is

1098
00:59:34,240 --> 00:59:38,840
Speaker 1: processed quite smoothly, but a new, unfamiliar statement in the

1099
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:41,520
Speaker 1: same context often causes you to say, wait, hold on,

1100
00:59:41,560 --> 00:59:43,360
Speaker 1: back up, I need to wrap my head around this.

1101
00:59:44,080 --> 00:59:48,360
Speaker 1: Familiar is easy. Unfamiliar is difficult. But how would you

1102
00:59:48,520 --> 00:59:52,720
Speaker 1: test whether the ease of processing information we're actually affecting

1103
00:59:52,720 --> 00:59:56,360
Speaker 1: our judgment of of the truth of a statement. And

1104
00:59:56,440 --> 00:59:58,360
Speaker 1: I want to get into a couple of quick, really

1105
00:59:58,360 --> 01:00:02,480
Speaker 1: interesting studies on this that we're so simple and so brilliant.

1106
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:07,720
Speaker 1: So in Rayburn Schwartz did a study in consciousness and

1107
01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:11,720
Speaker 1: cognition called Effects of perceptual fluency on judgments of truth.

1108
01:00:12,800 --> 01:00:14,640
Speaker 1: They took true or false statements, kind of like in

1109
01:00:14,680 --> 01:00:17,640
Speaker 1: the studies we've seen before of the variety osorn no

1110
01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:21,960
Speaker 1: is in Chile, or Greenland has roughly fifty inhabitants, and

1111
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:25,040
Speaker 1: they presented those statements to people, and the main independent

1112
01:00:25,080 --> 01:00:28,280
Speaker 1: variable was that they presented the statements either against a

1113
01:00:28,320 --> 01:00:31,960
Speaker 1: white background in a high contrast, easy to read color,

1114
01:00:32,520 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 1: or in a low contrast, hard to read color, and

1115
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:38,360
Speaker 1: apparently that made all the difference in the world. The

1116
01:00:38,440 --> 01:00:42,000
Speaker 1: idea is that the hard to read one has low

1117
01:00:42,080 --> 01:00:45,360
Speaker 1: processing fluency, it's difficult, and the easy to read one

1118
01:00:45,400 --> 01:00:49,520
Speaker 1: has high processing fluency, it's easy to process. And they

1119
01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:52,680
Speaker 1: found that this made a big difference in what people

1120
01:00:52,760 --> 01:00:57,720
Speaker 1: believed was true or false. Uh quote. Moderately visible statements

1121
01:00:57,720 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 1: were judged as true at chance all, whereas highly visible

1122
01:01:01,840 --> 01:01:05,720
Speaker 1: statements were judged as true significantly above chance level. We

1123
01:01:05,760 --> 01:01:10,560
Speaker 1: conclude the perceptual fluency affects judgments of truth. This is

1124
01:01:10,560 --> 01:01:12,800
Speaker 1: another one that makes sense from a marketing standpoint, right,

1125
01:01:12,840 --> 01:01:17,440
Speaker 1: just make your message very clear, very very easily absorbed,

1126
01:01:17,680 --> 01:01:20,280
Speaker 1: and people will begin to buy into it. Oh, absolutely,

1127
01:01:20,320 --> 01:01:23,520
Speaker 1: And this has actually been studied in marketing and consumer preference.

1128
01:01:23,600 --> 01:01:27,080
Speaker 1: Like there is one study from Novimski at All published

1129
01:01:27,080 --> 01:01:29,360
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven in the Journal of Marketing Research

1130
01:01:29,560 --> 01:01:32,600
Speaker 1: that in short, it found that consumers more often tend

1131
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:36,560
Speaker 1: to choose brands that represent ease and fluency. Like say,

1132
01:01:36,600 --> 01:01:39,600
Speaker 1: if the information about a brand is easy to read,

1133
01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:42,600
Speaker 1: consumers are more likely to choose that brand that's the

1134
01:01:42,640 --> 01:01:45,000
Speaker 1: one they want. So that makes me wonder why Coca

1135
01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:46,840
Speaker 1: Cola is written in cursive. It seems like you would

1136
01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:49,160
Speaker 1: want it just very clear, bold letters. Well didn't they

1137
01:01:49,160 --> 01:01:52,240
Speaker 1: try to change the can? When did? I haven't really

1138
01:01:52,280 --> 01:01:56,040
Speaker 1: looked at a can recently. Maybe it's not incursive anymore,

1139
01:01:56,160 --> 01:01:59,200
Speaker 1: you know, they're Actually you might have two things in conflict, right,

1140
01:01:59,520 --> 01:02:02,160
Speaker 1: So you could have in conflict if you if you've

1141
01:02:02,200 --> 01:02:04,920
Speaker 1: got an old logo that people are familiar with but

1142
01:02:05,000 --> 01:02:07,760
Speaker 1: it's hard to read, that the hard to read part

1143
01:02:08,080 --> 01:02:11,160
Speaker 1: might be undercutting their preference for it, but the fact

1144
01:02:11,240 --> 01:02:13,920
Speaker 1: that it's familiar might be boosting their preference for it.

1145
01:02:13,960 --> 01:02:15,960
Speaker 1: If you try to change it to something that's easier

1146
01:02:16,000 --> 01:02:20,240
Speaker 1: to read, the change might introduce more difficulty in processing

1147
01:02:20,360 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 1: than the ease of reading would improve processing. Yeah, that

1148
01:02:23,680 --> 01:02:25,600
Speaker 1: makes sense, all right, So I want to cite one

1149
01:02:25,640 --> 01:02:28,439
Speaker 1: more study, a study by Christian uncle Bach in two

1150
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:32,800
Speaker 1: thousand seven from the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Learning, Memory,

1151
01:02:32,800 --> 01:02:36,840
Speaker 1: and Cognition and Uncle Bach does an interesting thing in

1152
01:02:36,880 --> 01:02:40,000
Speaker 1: the study where he's got a hypothesis he wants to test.

1153
01:02:40,080 --> 01:02:44,320
Speaker 1: He writes, quote, I argue that experienced fluency is used

1154
01:02:44,360 --> 01:02:46,920
Speaker 1: as a que and judgments of truth according to the

1155
01:02:46,960 --> 01:02:52,040
Speaker 1: cues ecological validity, meaning like successfulness in the real world.

1156
01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:56,680
Speaker 1: Quote that is, the truth effect occurs because repetition leads

1157
01:02:56,720 --> 01:03:00,120
Speaker 1: to more fluent processing of a statement, and people have

1158
01:03:00,280 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 1: learned that the experience of processing fluency correlates positively with

1159
01:03:04,920 --> 01:03:07,280
Speaker 1: the truth of a statement. So this is sort of

1160
01:03:07,280 --> 01:03:09,400
Speaker 1: what we were talking about earlier. It's a heuristic that

1161
01:03:09,760 --> 01:03:12,200
Speaker 1: you know, you're more likely to encounter true statements in

1162
01:03:12,240 --> 01:03:16,360
Speaker 1: the wild. People learn this through experience, and then they

1163
01:03:16,480 --> 01:03:21,160
Speaker 1: use the the the queue of processing fluency to to

1164
01:03:21,400 --> 01:03:23,880
Speaker 1: be the judge of whether something is familiar or not.

1165
01:03:24,800 --> 01:03:27,800
Speaker 1: And if it's familiar and they get that processing fluency

1166
01:03:27,800 --> 01:03:31,680
Speaker 1: bump it's easy to process, then they're more likely to

1167
01:03:31,680 --> 01:03:34,160
Speaker 1: believe it's true because that's what has worked for them

1168
01:03:34,160 --> 01:03:37,040
Speaker 1: in the past. And if this is true, Uncle Box says,

1169
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:39,160
Speaker 1: I bet I could reverse it with a little bit

1170
01:03:39,160 --> 01:03:42,760
Speaker 1: of training, and he does. He's got an experiment where

1171
01:03:42,800 --> 01:03:46,000
Speaker 1: with a training phase he actually does three different experiments,

1172
01:03:46,320 --> 01:03:49,720
Speaker 1: and essentially what he does is that he trains people

1173
01:03:49,760 --> 01:03:52,560
Speaker 1: in a scenario where things that are easier to process,

1174
01:03:52,640 --> 01:03:55,800
Speaker 1: either because of being easier to read or because of

1175
01:03:55,880 --> 01:03:59,919
Speaker 1: repetition and familiarity. Either way, those things are more core

1176
01:04:00,040 --> 01:04:03,320
Speaker 1: related with the thing, with the thing being false, and

1177
01:04:03,360 --> 01:04:06,400
Speaker 1: when people get trained in sessions like that, they lose

1178
01:04:06,440 --> 01:04:09,720
Speaker 1: the effect. So the good takeaway there is that if

1179
01:04:09,720 --> 01:04:12,600
Speaker 1: he's correct, it would probably also mean that your susceptibility

1180
01:04:12,640 --> 01:04:15,760
Speaker 1: to the lusory truth effect is dependent on what kind

1181
01:04:15,840 --> 01:04:18,800
Speaker 1: of environment you've trained in, and that you could potentially

1182
01:04:19,280 --> 01:04:22,280
Speaker 1: untrain yourself on it. But that would be hard to

1183
01:04:22,320 --> 01:04:24,280
Speaker 1: do because we all live in this world all the

1184
01:04:24,280 --> 01:04:26,120
Speaker 1: time where most of the time people are telling us

1185
01:04:26,160 --> 01:04:28,760
Speaker 1: true things. Right, and and again, the brain is still

1186
01:04:28,800 --> 01:04:31,480
Speaker 1: going to need all of these shortcuts in order to

1187
01:04:31,640 --> 01:04:34,240
Speaker 1: function properly. Yeah, exactly, But you could just be using

1188
01:04:34,280 --> 01:04:36,800
Speaker 1: the opposite shortcut, Like if you live in a world

1189
01:04:36,800 --> 01:04:40,000
Speaker 1: where people lie to you all the time, Uncle Bock's

1190
01:04:40,040 --> 01:04:42,440
Speaker 1: results here would suggest that you would eventually adapt to

1191
01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:45,280
Speaker 1: this and you would instead become exactly the opposite. New

1192
01:04:45,320 --> 01:04:48,000
Speaker 1: claims you've never heard before would seem more true to you,

1193
01:04:48,080 --> 01:04:50,840
Speaker 1: and repeated claims that you're familiar with would seem like

1194
01:04:50,920 --> 01:04:53,440
Speaker 1: lies to you. Okay, so there's hope for us after all. Yeah,

1195
01:04:53,520 --> 01:04:55,920
Speaker 1: I mean, but we can't expect to live in a

1196
01:04:55,920 --> 01:04:57,440
Speaker 1: world like that, and we don't want to live in

1197
01:04:57,440 --> 01:04:59,320
Speaker 1: a world like like like that, Like you don't want

1198
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:02,480
Speaker 1: to train your brain to live in a world where

1199
01:05:02,520 --> 01:05:06,200
Speaker 1: everything is assumed to be a lie. Oh and I

1200
01:05:06,680 --> 01:05:10,920
Speaker 1: surely somebody has has considered exploring this in fiction. It

1201
01:05:10,920 --> 01:05:13,320
Speaker 1: would be it would be a delicate affair to to

1202
01:05:13,320 --> 01:05:14,960
Speaker 1: really put it together and make it work on paper.

1203
01:05:15,040 --> 01:05:17,560
Speaker 1: But it's a world that I don't want to live in,

1204
01:05:17,600 --> 01:05:20,120
Speaker 1: but I kind of want to visit fictionally. Oh yeah,

1205
01:05:20,160 --> 01:05:21,840
Speaker 1: i'd go there with you. That that's a good one

1206
01:05:21,880 --> 01:05:24,439
Speaker 1: to to come back to. But just as a quick

1207
01:05:24,440 --> 01:05:27,520
Speaker 1: note before we close out today, I think this idea

1208
01:05:27,520 --> 01:05:30,520
Speaker 1: of processing fluency is a really interesting one. There's tons

1209
01:05:30,560 --> 01:05:33,400
Speaker 1: of research on it, Like, uh, there is a study

1210
01:05:33,440 --> 01:05:38,720
Speaker 1: I found by Sasha Topalinski from in Cognition and Emotion

1211
01:05:38,800 --> 01:05:42,520
Speaker 1: about how processing fluency affects how funny we find jokes

1212
01:05:43,120 --> 01:05:46,120
Speaker 1: that apparently, if a joke is easier to process, we've

1213
01:05:46,120 --> 01:05:49,640
Speaker 1: got high processing fluency on the joke. We think it's funnier.

1214
01:05:49,800 --> 01:05:51,960
Speaker 1: I guess it just like feels good to get it

1215
01:05:52,000 --> 01:05:55,680
Speaker 1: without with less effort or something. Uh So, there were

1216
01:05:55,760 --> 01:05:59,200
Speaker 1: multiple experiments, but basically here let me let me give

1217
01:05:59,200 --> 01:06:02,000
Speaker 1: you a quick preview. Gonna say a word, Robert, Peanuts.

1218
01:06:02,560 --> 01:06:05,640
Speaker 1: Do you like that word when you think about it? Peanuts? Peanuts?

1219
01:06:06,040 --> 01:06:08,040
Speaker 1: It's pretty good. It's it's not the funniest where it's

1220
01:06:08,080 --> 01:06:10,720
Speaker 1: no cheese. But but but I like it. Okay, I

1221
01:06:10,800 --> 01:06:13,240
Speaker 1: just said that word. So one example of this type

1222
01:06:13,240 --> 01:06:16,440
Speaker 1: of study would be if you prime somebody with significant

1223
01:06:16,560 --> 01:06:19,840
Speaker 1: nouns from the punch line of a joke fifteen minutes

1224
01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:22,720
Speaker 1: or even up to just one minute before you tell

1225
01:06:22,760 --> 01:06:27,400
Speaker 1: them the joke, people find the joke more hilarious. However,

1226
01:06:27,480 --> 01:06:29,760
Speaker 1: if you tell them a significant noun from the punch

1227
01:06:29,800 --> 01:06:33,080
Speaker 1: line immediately before the joke, they find the joke less funny,

1228
01:06:33,080 --> 01:06:35,080
Speaker 1: and the authors think this is probably just or the

1229
01:06:35,120 --> 01:06:37,920
Speaker 1: author thinks this is because if you tell them right

1230
01:06:37,960 --> 01:06:40,200
Speaker 1: before the joke, it sort of spoils the punch line.

1231
01:06:40,840 --> 01:06:45,120
Speaker 1: But knock, knock, who's there? Cash? Cash? Who? No? Thanks?

1232
01:06:45,160 --> 01:06:49,840
Speaker 1: I prefer peanuts. Ah See, it works, it's not not

1233
01:06:49,920 --> 01:06:52,880
Speaker 1: even but you already established peanuts, so it helped, right.

1234
01:06:53,120 --> 01:06:55,200
Speaker 1: I tried to let a minute or so elapse there.

1235
01:06:55,800 --> 01:06:58,080
Speaker 1: I don't know if it worked well. It's also complicated

1236
01:06:58,080 --> 01:07:00,280
Speaker 1: because we did bring up peanuts and peanut better earlier

1237
01:07:00,280 --> 01:07:02,640
Speaker 1: in the episode. I didn't even think about that, but

1238
01:07:02,920 --> 01:07:06,080
Speaker 1: this Actually I am not a student of of stand

1239
01:07:06,160 --> 01:07:09,760
Speaker 1: up comedy by any stretch of the imagination, but I

1240
01:07:09,840 --> 01:07:12,440
Speaker 1: watch enough stand up to see that just that that

1241
01:07:12,520 --> 01:07:15,360
Speaker 1: common structural tool that they use where you have the

1242
01:07:15,400 --> 01:07:18,080
Speaker 1: call back to a previous joke, and they'll often do

1243
01:07:18,120 --> 01:07:20,480
Speaker 1: it right at the end and then it's good night everybody.

1244
01:07:20,520 --> 01:07:23,720
Speaker 1: That's the high note. And it it's not even necessarily

1245
01:07:23,920 --> 01:07:27,400
Speaker 1: like a call back to their to the funniest moment

1246
01:07:27,400 --> 01:07:29,360
Speaker 1: in the bit or the funniest bit in the in

1247
01:07:29,600 --> 01:07:32,080
Speaker 1: the stand up performance, but just the fact that they've

1248
01:07:32,400 --> 01:07:36,600
Speaker 1: brought your mind back to it. It generates laughter, and

1249
01:07:36,640 --> 01:07:38,760
Speaker 1: it's the the moment to end the show. On Yeah.

1250
01:07:38,760 --> 01:07:42,360
Speaker 1: The theory is that it's it's very satisfying to have

1251
01:07:42,400 --> 01:07:45,240
Speaker 1: a joke that you've where you've been primed for the

1252
01:07:45,280 --> 01:07:49,040
Speaker 1: punch line already, because it's so much easier to get

1253
01:07:49,080 --> 01:07:52,680
Speaker 1: the punchline quickly and have that experience of familiarity in

1254
01:07:52,680 --> 01:07:55,640
Speaker 1: the yaha movement moment, because when you say a word

1255
01:07:56,040 --> 01:07:58,200
Speaker 1: and then you say the word again later, the second

1256
01:07:58,240 --> 01:08:00,680
Speaker 1: time you hear the word, you've been primed, like, you know,

1257
01:08:00,720 --> 01:08:03,320
Speaker 1: it's more fluid. So yeah, I think that may very

1258
01:08:03,320 --> 01:08:06,120
Speaker 1: well be going on with callbacks. Another part of the

1259
01:08:06,160 --> 01:08:09,120
Speaker 1: same study was that, like the studies we've been seeing before,

1260
01:08:09,200 --> 01:08:12,160
Speaker 1: jokes presented in an easy to read font were rated

1261
01:08:12,200 --> 01:08:14,800
Speaker 1: as funnier than jokes presented in a really hard to

1262
01:08:14,840 --> 01:08:18,720
Speaker 1: read font. That's kind of not surprising, but processing fluency

1263
01:08:18,840 --> 01:08:21,439
Speaker 1: it plays into all this stuff, like there is research

1264
01:08:21,479 --> 01:08:26,400
Speaker 1: about how opinions that are repeated more often, even just

1265
01:08:26,520 --> 01:08:29,599
Speaker 1: by a single person in a group, come to seem

1266
01:08:29,680 --> 01:08:32,000
Speaker 1: more prevalent in a group. So you've got ten people

1267
01:08:32,040 --> 01:08:34,280
Speaker 1: standing around, and then you've just got Jeff over here,

1268
01:08:34,560 --> 01:08:37,639
Speaker 1: and Jeff keeps saying the same opinion over and over again,

1269
01:08:37,680 --> 01:08:40,360
Speaker 1: even if you're aware it's just Jeff saying it in

1270
01:08:40,439 --> 01:08:42,720
Speaker 1: the end. If he does that, you will think that

1271
01:08:42,720 --> 01:08:45,920
Speaker 1: that opinion is more prevalent in the entire group the

1272
01:08:46,000 --> 01:08:48,360
Speaker 1: more people hold it. Well, that would make sense. You

1273
01:08:48,400 --> 01:08:51,120
Speaker 1: have one person in a group who say continually trashes

1274
01:08:51,200 --> 01:08:54,040
Speaker 1: on the movie Aliens. Oh no, why would that happen.

1275
01:08:54,080 --> 01:08:55,720
Speaker 1: I don't know, but let's say it it happens. You know,

1276
01:08:55,720 --> 01:08:57,280
Speaker 1: I could see where it could reach the point where

1277
01:08:57,280 --> 01:08:58,720
Speaker 1: you're kind of like, I don't really know how I

1278
01:08:58,720 --> 01:09:00,880
Speaker 1: feel about aliens now, but because I sure do here

1279
01:09:01,000 --> 01:09:04,360
Speaker 1: here Jeff uh talking trash about it all the time,

1280
01:09:04,520 --> 01:09:06,679
Speaker 1: or you could walk away from it being like, man,

1281
01:09:06,760 --> 01:09:09,639
Speaker 1: I don't understand all these people who hate aliens even

1282
01:09:09,680 --> 01:09:12,280
Speaker 1: though it's just one person. Yeah, that that seems to

1283
01:09:12,280 --> 01:09:14,960
Speaker 1: be something that would go on. Processing fluency also appears

1284
01:09:15,000 --> 01:09:17,360
Speaker 1: to have something to do with aesthetic pleasure. There's been

1285
01:09:17,400 --> 01:09:20,479
Speaker 1: a lot of research and theory about this that that's

1286
01:09:20,520 --> 01:09:24,599
Speaker 1: a major component of what feels aesthetically pleasing to us

1287
01:09:24,760 --> 01:09:28,760
Speaker 1: is based on what's easy to process. Another part is

1288
01:09:28,840 --> 01:09:32,519
Speaker 1: that processing fluencing fluency apparently affects how credible a face looks.

1289
01:09:33,160 --> 01:09:35,840
Speaker 1: Uh So, if are you going to believe somebody, Well,

1290
01:09:35,880 --> 01:09:38,799
Speaker 1: it turns out if their face is easier to process,

1291
01:09:38,880 --> 01:09:41,400
Speaker 1: especially because you've seen it a bunch of times before,

1292
01:09:41,560 --> 01:09:43,400
Speaker 1: you're more likely to believe it. Even if they're not

1293
01:09:43,479 --> 01:09:46,000
Speaker 1: famous and they're not somebody you know, they're not like

1294
01:09:46,040 --> 01:09:48,840
Speaker 1: somebody you've had experience with that you can you know,

1295
01:09:48,960 --> 01:09:52,200
Speaker 1: judge their credibility. Just random faces shown to you in

1296
01:09:52,240 --> 01:09:54,880
Speaker 1: different sessions of an experiment. If you've seen them before,

1297
01:09:55,000 --> 01:09:57,920
Speaker 1: they're more credible. Of course, that reminds me of various

1298
01:09:57,960 --> 01:10:02,519
Speaker 1: experiments over the years involving the believability of people with beards,

1299
01:10:02,840 --> 01:10:07,120
Speaker 1: people with facial hair or beards harder to process they have.

1300
01:10:07,400 --> 01:10:09,200
Speaker 1: I have not looked into it recently, so I don't

1301
01:10:09,200 --> 01:10:11,720
Speaker 1: know if there are any more recent studies that that

1302
01:10:11,760 --> 01:10:14,120
Speaker 1: that crack this nut. But but there there have been

1303
01:10:14,160 --> 01:10:15,680
Speaker 1: studies that have looked out in the past where they

1304
01:10:15,680 --> 01:10:17,600
Speaker 1: make the argument that, yes, an individual with the with

1305
01:10:17,640 --> 01:10:19,680
Speaker 1: the beard, you're going to have a little more distrust

1306
01:10:19,840 --> 01:10:23,240
Speaker 1: towards them. Well, obviously nobody should trust me. Well, no,

1307
01:10:23,360 --> 01:10:26,680
Speaker 1: we trust you because we know you. Joe, Yeah, do

1308
01:10:26,720 --> 01:10:29,120
Speaker 1: you really? Do you ever really know someone? Well, I'll

1309
01:10:29,120 --> 01:10:31,080
Speaker 1: tell you one thing I know, and that's peanuts stuff.

1310
01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:34,680
Speaker 1: You got me. You got me there, you made me

1311
01:10:34,800 --> 01:10:38,439
Speaker 1: laugh and my joke didn't make you laugh. Okay, Okay,

1312
01:10:38,479 --> 01:10:40,479
Speaker 1: So we gotta wrap up there. We've gone long here,

1313
01:10:40,520 --> 01:10:43,120
Speaker 1: but so we'll be back in the next episode to

1314
01:10:43,160 --> 01:10:45,600
Speaker 1: explore more recent findings and some of the ways that

1315
01:10:45,680 --> 01:10:49,200
Speaker 1: the illusory truth effect really does matter in our in

1316
01:10:49,240 --> 01:10:53,040
Speaker 1: our political and social world. Um. But so main takeaways

1317
01:10:53,040 --> 01:10:56,320
Speaker 1: I would say today is that the illusory truth effect

1318
01:10:56,400 --> 01:10:59,479
Speaker 1: is real. Exposure and repetition really does change our beliefs.

1319
01:10:59,760 --> 01:11:03,920
Speaker 1: The lusory truth effect is small, meaning it doesn't automatically

1320
01:11:04,000 --> 01:11:08,280
Speaker 1: overwhelm other criteria in our decision making and judgment. In fact,

1321
01:11:08,280 --> 01:11:10,360
Speaker 1: in many cases it appears that whether or not a

1322
01:11:10,400 --> 01:11:13,960
Speaker 1: statement is actually true is more important to our judgment

1323
01:11:13,960 --> 01:11:16,800
Speaker 1: than whether or not it's repeated or made easier to read,

1324
01:11:16,920 --> 01:11:21,000
Speaker 1: or any of these other processing fluency boosts. But on average,

1325
01:11:21,000 --> 01:11:23,240
Speaker 1: over lots of repetitions, it's easy to see how this

1326
01:11:23,280 --> 01:11:25,560
Speaker 1: could have a big effect, especially when you bring it

1327
01:11:25,600 --> 01:11:29,280
Speaker 1: back to propaganda purposes on things we believe as a society,

1328
01:11:29,400 --> 01:11:33,080
Speaker 1: things that shift voting patterns in small but significant ways

1329
01:11:33,160 --> 01:11:34,880
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Yeah, that's the key. That it's

1330
01:11:34,880 --> 01:11:38,360
Speaker 1: not occurring within a vacuum. It's uh, it's it's it's

1331
01:11:38,520 --> 01:11:42,320
Speaker 1: affecting and being affected by all these other um mental

1332
01:11:42,360 --> 01:11:46,360
Speaker 1: processes and UH and factors that are affecting our decision

1333
01:11:46,360 --> 01:11:49,559
Speaker 1: making and worldview totally. But we will get more into

1334
01:11:49,600 --> 01:11:52,519
Speaker 1: that in our next episode. In the meantime, be sure

1335
01:11:52,520 --> 01:11:54,280
Speaker 1: to check out all the episodes of Stuff to Blow

1336
01:11:54,280 --> 01:11:56,479
Speaker 1: Your Mind at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1337
01:11:56,520 --> 01:11:59,720
Speaker 1: That is the mothership. That is where you will find everything,

1338
01:11:59,840 --> 01:12:02,840
Speaker 1: as well as links out to our verious social media accounts.

1339
01:12:03,080 --> 01:12:05,280
Speaker 1: If you want to support the show, we always urge

1340
01:12:05,280 --> 01:12:08,840
Speaker 1: you to leave us a positive review, leave us some

1341
01:12:09,000 --> 01:12:11,760
Speaker 1: stars or whatever the rating system is. Just rate and

1342
01:12:11,760 --> 01:12:15,160
Speaker 1: review us wherever possible. Big thanks as always to our

1343
01:12:15,200 --> 01:12:18,640
Speaker 1: excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tory Harrison. If you

1344
01:12:18,640 --> 01:12:20,080
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us to let

1345
01:12:20,120 --> 01:12:22,120
Speaker 1: us know your feedback on this episode or any other,

1346
01:12:22,400 --> 01:12:24,680
Speaker 1: or to let us know a topic you'd like us

1347
01:12:24,680 --> 01:12:26,679
Speaker 1: to cover in a future episode, you can always email

1348
01:12:26,800 --> 01:12:29,599
Speaker 1: us at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot

1349
01:12:29,640 --> 01:12:41,280
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

1350
01:12:41,520 --> 01:13:02,080
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff Works dot Com was first time

1351
01:13:02,160 --> 01:13:03,519
Speaker 1: a US bad by a brother