WEBVTT - From the Vault: Illusory Truth Effect, Part 1 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:07.520 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:10.879 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:13.480 Time to go into the Old Vault. This episode originally 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:18.239 aired July, and this was part one of our discussion 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:22.160 of the illusory truth effect, one of the many biases 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.560 that that, unfortunately affects all of our brains and makes 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:28.120 it harder for us to know what's true. Yeah, this 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:30.520 is one that's, uh, you know, this is gonna shake 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:32.879 some of your your foundation stones. I think you know, 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.000 this one's gonna make you rethink the way you interact 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:38.800 with with the world and how you interact with truth. So, uh, 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.479 you know, it's maybe a harrowing journey at times, but 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.000 I think you're gonna emerge on the other end stronger. 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.880 And Part two will come a week from today. Your today, 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:54.200 not our today, as we record this. Welcome to Stuff 0:00:54.240 --> 0:01:03.120 to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:05.040 you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:07.720 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today, we're 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.800 gonna be talking about one of our favorite subjects, our 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.720 tendency to believe things that aren't true now, Robert, I 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:18.399 wonder is there a false factoid or claim that you 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.920 just always find yourself recalling as true even though you've 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:24.720 checked it before and discovered it to be false in 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:29.000 the past. Yeah, this is an interesting question because I 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:30.840 feel like there are things that come up in research 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:34.840 all the time, certainly key things over the years. Uh, 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.360 you know, as we research and riot different topics where 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:39.360 I have to correct on, you know, where I think 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:40.920 I knew something and then I'm like, oh, well that's 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:43.240 that's actually now that actually do the research, it's not 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:45.920 not a not a fact. And then then you know, 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.600 the same goes for false beliefs, that beliefs that they 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.320 creep in the sort of Mandela fact type of scenario. 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:55.080 For instance, there was a time when I thought Gene 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.240 Wilder was dead prior to his actual death, and then 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:00.480 as he actually dead now he is actual really dead now. 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:02.240 So I thought he was dead before he was dead 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:04.760 exactly because and I think it was just a combination 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:08.320 of he was not as active anymore, and I wasn't 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:12.280 really keeping up with the Gene Wilder filmography and like 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:15.760 current events related to Gene Wilder, and something maybe I 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:17.640 picked up on some news piece at some point, and 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.520 somehow he got clicked to the dead category. And then 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:22.280 when I found out he was alive, it was it 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:24.760 was really like he came back to life. And I 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.520 had the same thing happened literally just the other day 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.560 with a standout comedian, Larry Miller. I don't think I 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.560 remember who that is. Oh. He he had to kind 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:37.960 of you know, dry observational comedy he had. I think 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:40.280 he still acts, but he would show up on say 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:42.960 night Chord. I think, oh, wait a minute, is seeing 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.480 some Christopher guest movies. He may have been, Yeah, but 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.160 for some reason years ago, I got into my head 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:52.720 that he had passed away, and so occasionally I would 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:54.160 think of Larry Miller and was like, oh, yeah, I 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.760 remember Larry Miller. Too bad he passed. And then I 0:02:57.919 --> 0:02:59.600 actually looked him up the other day and it turns 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:01.680 out he was not passed away. He's still very much 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.799 alive and active. And I was just living in this 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.440 fantasy world of dead and Larry Miller's. You know, I 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.440 have false beliefs that recur with much more significance, like 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:15.840 I keep remembering that, Yeah, maybe it's just because I 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:17.120 was told this all the time when I was a 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:21.960 kid that vitamin C supplements will ward off colds. That 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.120 is not experimentally proven. That that is like not a 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.440 finding of science. And yet I just always if I 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:32.400 haven't checked in a while, it just seeps right back in, like, yes, 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.240 that is true, vitamin C it'll keep colds away. Well, 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.200 it's easy to fall into the trap. I do this 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.400 all the time with with various vitamins and some supplements 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:42.320 where I'm like, I don't know if it works, probably 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:44.200 doesn't work, but I'm going to go and take it 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.560 just in case, because it's it's vitamin C. You know, 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.120 what's the what's what's the harm there? It's kind of 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.480 like believing in God just in cases that he exists, 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.840 believing in vitamins. Yeah, but then you end up with 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:57.400 like a weird sort of vitamin tentacle going out of 0:03:57.400 --> 0:03:59.960 your neck. And you didn't see that come digit, that's 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.440 fake news. The Joe vidamin C will not cause a 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:04.360 tentacle to grow out of your neck. But now you've 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:08.120 heard it, it's true. Um. You know, I feel like 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:12.160 there are things that have popped up where where I'll think, well, 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.600 I've always heard X, but I've never actually looked it up. UM, 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.359 And and then that's where the problem seeps in, you know, 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:21.480 where I just I think I know something, but I'm 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.280 not sure, but I don't care enough to actually investigate. UM. 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.320 There is one possible example that that comes up, and 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:30.960 that is there was this, of course, the idea that 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.960 George Washington Carver invented peanut butter. He know, he had 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.479 something to do with peanuts. He had, so yeah, he was. 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.880 He was. He is a famous inventor, important to African 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.680 American inventor. And I just I didn't know a lot 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.400 about him, and I had always heard the peanut butter thing, 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:51.599 but I didn't actually research until I helped my son 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.839 with a class project about him earlier this year, and 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.480 then I was able to definitely, you know, check that 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.599 one off on the mental list, like, okay, this is 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.120 the is this is false. He did not invent peanut 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.760 better he did, but he did do stuff with peanuts, 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.039 could do stuff with peanuts, but not peanut butter. Okay. 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.479 You know a huge place where you can see false 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:16.159 beliefs persisting, UM is in people's beliefs about sort of 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:22.280 like political facts or sociological data. A very very common 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:25.799 one is people's beliefs about crime. I think it's because 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:29.320 like crime is one of those like sensational types of 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.720 subjects and makes people think about violence, images of blood 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.120 they see on the news and stuff like that. You know, 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.160 poll conducted by Pew in the fall of get this 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.200 fifty seven percent, So a majority of people who had 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:46.000 voted or planned to vote in sixteen said that crime 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.279 had gotten worse in the United States since two thousand 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:53.520 eight by every objective measure. Exactly, the opposite is true. 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.800 That's just not true. FBI statistics, based off of like 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.679 nationwide police reports, found that violent cry time and property 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:04.320 crime in the United States fell nineteen percent and twenty 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:09.000 three percent, respectively between two thousand eight and and so 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.880 you think, okay, well, maybe that if that's just police reports, 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.760 maybe fewer people are reporting crimes to the police, right, 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.920 But also the U. S. Department of Justice Bureau of 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:22.080 Justice Statistics does direct annual surveys of more than ninety 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:24.960 thou households to see about rates of crime that might 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.080 not be reported to police. And quote the b j 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.640 S state to show that violent crime and property crime 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.479 rates fell twenty six percent and twenty two percent, respectively, 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:38.120 between two thousand eight and so a majority of people 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.520 are believing something that by every measure we know, is 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.440 not true. Crime has gone down, and yet a majority 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.480 of people believe it has gone up. And it's not 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.760 hard to see why that might be true when you 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.880 consider like the political messaging of certain politicians. It's also 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.480 you could also, of course think about just people negativity bias, right, 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.360 the tendency to believe things are worse than they are 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:05.200 in the broad sense or mean world syndrome looking at 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:08.280 dangerous stuff happening on the news and thus having an 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.520 overrepresentation of it in your mind. But I think we 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:17.280 would be wrong to ignore the effects of hearing specific politicians. Well, 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.520 for for example, in twenty sixteen, specifically it was Donald 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:22.600 Trump a lot talking about how crime is through the 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.600 roof right, And and to your point, we can look 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.440 to statistics on this. This is not something that is uh. 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:30.480 That is just you know, in the ether, we have 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:32.960 hard data. It's not a matter of opinion. It's just 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:36.440 like every measure we have says that's not correct. But 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:38.600 what about other beliefs. I mean that that's certainly not 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:41.960 in isolation. There are lots of cases where there are 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:47.520 widespread beliefs in things that are just simply factually not true. Yeah, 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:51.000 I'll run through a few here that that range and topic. 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:53.480 For instance, here's a nice science related when to kick 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.400 off with. In a two thousand fifteen Pew survey, only 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.720 thirty percent of Americans knew that water boils at all 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:04.440 lower temperature at higher altitudes. Thirty nine percent said it 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.600 would boil at the same temperature in Denver in l A, 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:12.800 again Denver being at a far higher altitude, and had 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.440 it reversed. So the majority, something like two thirds of 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.600 people were just flat wrong yes and uh yeah. And 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.320 to put that in perspective with another science fact, most 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:27.720 Americans in this two thousand fifteen survey correctly identified the 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.400 Earth's inner layer, the core, as its hottest part, and 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.560 nearly as many two knew that uranium was needed to 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:39.320 make nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Well, should we be 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.560 comforted by the fact that that's what people know? I don't, like, 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:45.319 they don't know much about water, but they know about 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.520 nuclear weapons. Well, I mean, on one hand, nuclear weapons 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.600 was is and was more in the news. Uh, And 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:55.800 then on the other hand, like the the inside of 0:08:55.840 --> 0:09:01.400 the earth is more engaging and and also completely on politicize. Uh, well, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:03.840 well water is not politically boiling point of water is 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:07.319 not politicized. But it's also not very sexy. I guess 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.880 like it's it's it's one of those things where unless 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:15.240 you're actively moving from low to high altitudes or you know, 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:17.160 living part of your time and dinner from part of 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.679 your time in l A, I guess it's it's very 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.240 possible to live your entire life without really having any 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.400 real world experience with the difference. Uh though, I do 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.920 feel like if you read enough baking manuals, it comes up. Yeah, 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.079 but maybe you just don't remember which way it goes. 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:33.640 I guess that you know one of the ones you've 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.400 got here that that has come up many times in 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:38.400 my life. It's come up enough that I know the 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.840 right answer now. But the misconception that you can see 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.079 the Great Wall of China from space, Oh yeah, this 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.120 is one that I have to admit. I think I 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.720 used to adhere to again without really referencing it, because 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:53.160 it just it had that kind of truthiness to it, right, 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:55.600 and you want it to be to be real. The 0:09:55.720 --> 0:10:00.960 idea that that this this epic structure aided Uh, you 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:05.600 know long Ago is visible from space, but it's actually 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:10.079 been been disproven multiple times. It's it's only visible from 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:14.200 low orbit under very ideal conditions, and it's not visible 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:16.040 from the Moon at all. Because that's another version of 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.400 it that it's that that the Great Wall of China 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:20.760 can be seen from the moon. Yeah, I guess there 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.280 are nuances to the word visible. What's what I mean? 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:25.800 But in the normal sense that you would mean it's 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:30.080 not visible from space. Correct. Now a two thousand sixteen 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.400 you gov poll, this was this is a UK group. 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:38.160 They looked at how belief in pizza gate that thing, Yeah, 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:42.360 how that shakes out across different voter groups. Now, that 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.199 was this vast conspiracy theory people had about how there 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.200 was a pizza restaurant in Washington, d C. That was 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.160 like running child slavery rings that was linked to the 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.640 Democratic Party. Yeah, it had to do with an idea 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:59.800 that Clinton campaign emails supposedly talked about human trafficking and pedophilia. 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:05.000 And according to this particular poll, sevent of polled Clinton 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.280 voters believed that that this was the case, this was 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:12.800 a reality, and of Trump voters did um. And then 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.120 there's another classic they looked out to to put this 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.920 in perspective, the idea that President Barack Obama was born 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:24.480 in Kenya. Kind of alarmingly enough, across both groups of voters, 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.760 both the Clinton voters and the Trump voters, they found 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.600 thirty six percent believed it, despite the fact that that too, 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.720 has been debunked time and time again. Yeah, I mean, 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.560 it's crazy that these types of beliefs can catch on 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:40.920 so well, especially like we we understand very well the 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:45.880 way that political ideology and tribal thinking affects the way 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.880 we form opinions. Obviously, our our opinions are deeply informed 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.200 by what people we view as are in group believe, 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:55.280 and so we want to be in line with the 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:57.760 in group and and stuff like that. But you also 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.480 can't really ignore the fact that these are things that 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.400 if you pay attention to certain sources, you're going to 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:07.400 be hearing over and over and over again. And what 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:11.040 effect that might have because it's you know, widely accepted 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:14.360 fulk wisdom that if you repeat a lie enough, people 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.240 start to believe that it's the truth. Right, That's one 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.040 of the things. I mean, I don't know, you've said 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.079 it enough times that I'm already convinced exactly, I mean 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.600 almost going along with this. Uh. There's a quote that 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:29.480 often gets sourced to the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Gebbles. Uh. 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.040 Some versions of the quote say something like, if you 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.880 repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.240 you will even come to believe it yourself. I couldn't 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.000 find any evidence that just Gebbels actually said that. It 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.880 seems to be a misattribution, but it's sort of a 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:47.679 paraphrase of similar ideas that are, you know, within that 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:50.920 that frame of thinking. Like Adolf Hitler himself wrote in 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:55.240 mind comp quote, the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.640 no success unless one fundamental principle is born in mind 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:03.120 constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.480 a few points and repeat them over and over here 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.440 as so often in the world, persistence is the first 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.760 and most important requirement for success. So just the fact 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.520 that Hitler said it obviously shouldn't make us think, well, 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.080 you know, he's right with Hitler though. If if Hitler 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.280 was good at anything, it was getting lots of people 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:25.080 to believe lies. Certainly, so I think, because this is 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:29.120 such an important issue. And because widespread misconceptions are so common, 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.160 and because they can, in fact, especially in some political circumstances, 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.400 be so destructive, And because the repetition of lies and 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:40.320 false statements in in at every scale of existence, you know, 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.280 in in mass media and in our personal private lives, 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:45.920 is so common, I think it's worth looking at the 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:50.559 actual empirical case. Is this true, the idea that repeating 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:55.960 statements over and over does that actually change what we believe. 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:57.760 It's one of those things that you know, it sounds 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.840 so common sensical, you just assume it's true. But according 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:03.920 to the logic we're using now, those are exactly the 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.560 kinds of statements that maybe we should be careful about. Yeah, 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.080 and I think this is an important important topic for 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.800 for everybody. I don't care who you voted for in 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:16.800 any previous elections or which political party in your given 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.120 system that you adhere to. I think if you're listening 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.479 to this show especially, you want to think for yourself. 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:27.080 You want to reduce the amount of manipulation that's going 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.560 on with your your own view of reality. And and 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:32.760 and that's what we're going to discuss here today. We're 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:39.560 gonna discuss the degree to which false information can manipulate 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:42.280 our view of reality and ultimately, what are some of 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.720 the things we can do to to hold onto our 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:49.040 our our individuality and all of this exactly. So this 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:50.400 is going to be the first of a two part 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.480 episode where we explore the liar's best trick, the question 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:58.680 of repetition and exposure in forming our beliefs and changing 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:01.720 our attitudes. So that's going to be the jumping off 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:05.480 point for today's episode. Does exposure and repetition is hearing 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:09.360 a claim and hearing it repeated actually have the power 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:14.240 to change our beliefs? Or is that just unverified folk wisdom? Yeah? 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:16.480 And and of course it goes it goes well beyond politics. 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:18.920 It also gets into marketing. You know, we've we've touched 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:23.400 on the manipulative nature of marketing and advertisement on the 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.880 show before, and it's always one of the things you 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:28.880 always come back to. It's always about messaging, right, Like 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:31.120 what is the message of the product? What's the message 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.240 of the ad campaign? And how they just continue to 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:38.000 hammer that home. Why do brands have slogans? Yeah? Why 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.880 don't they just tell you a positive message about the 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.600 brand that's different every time? Why do they tell you 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:48.000 the same message in the same words in every commercial. Yeah, 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.880 why did those fabulous horror trailers from the nineteen seventies 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:55.000 say the name of the film eighteen times, don't go 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:57.040 in the basement, don't go in the basement, No one, no, 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:00.880 just seventeen will be admitted. Yeah, it's all. It's all 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.240 kind of part of the same situation. All right, Well, 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:04.920 we're going to take a quick break and when we 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.800 get back, we will dive into the research in the 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:13.320 history of psychology about repetition and exposure. Thank you, thank you. 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.240 All right, we're back. So the first question we're going 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.360 to be looking at today is whether anyone has actually 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.280 studied this question, this question of whether exposing people to 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.040 acclaim and then repeating the claim makes them believe it, 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:30.920 Whether anybody studied that in a controlled scientific context. And 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.000 the answer is a resounding yes. There are I think 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:37.800 dozens of studies on this subject in various forms. Probably 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.840 the flagship study on this, the first big one that 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:44.440 everybody sites that that really got people into the subject, 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:46.760 that got the ball rolling on it was from ninety 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.120 and it was by Lynn Hasher, David Goldstein, and Thomas Topino, 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.360 and it was called Frequency and the Conference of Referential 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:59.200 Validity in the Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:02.160 And that was as I said in nineteen seven. So 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.520 the authors start out in the study by talking about 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.320 how most studies of memory that take place in the 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:13.000 lab involved useless or meaningless information units. So researchers, for example, 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.120 might try to see how well subjects remember a phrase 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:18.800 like I just made this up. The purple donkey was 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:22.640 made of soft spoken muscular elves, Like, can you remember 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.960 that word for word? The purple donkey was made by 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:31.520 muscular elves. Now, now you're close, not made of Yeah, 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:33.960 it makes a lot more sense to say made by wow. 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:36.520 But I see, I've already missed up the origin story 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:40.440 of the purple donkey. Statements like this have no importance 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:42.359 in the real world, and part of what they were 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.960 talking about is that we're testing for memory and things 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.960 that don't have any validity to reality. Um. So the 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:53.040 authors write that they're curious about what kind of processing 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.480 subjects do with information units that might have validity in 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.720 the real world. For example, factual statements like quote, the 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:04.560 total population of Greenland is about fifty thou which at 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.120 the time of the study it was. I checked, though, 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:08.840 that seems like a lot more people than should be 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.080 in Greenland, right, I was. I was surprised by that. Well, 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.320 but I would agree based on I'll be a limited 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.760 amount of of information that I've I've read and viewed 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.200 about Greenland. You know, you typically, in my experience, Greenland 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.520 shows up in nature documentaries, and of course you're going 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:29.280 to see rather barren uh locations in those films. Well, 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:31.959 greenlanders out there in the audience. Let us know if 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.000 you're listening, what's life like up there in Greenland. I'm 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:39.480 interested now. But anyway back, So, yeah, population of Greenland 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:42.400 at the times about fifty and so statements like this 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.400 both refer to something that could be true or false 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.439 in the real world, and there are also things that 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:50.439 people are probably uncertain about, like do you know what 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.320 the actual population of Greenland is? I didn't know before 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:55.560 I looked it up, And so we know that the 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.159 statement is either true or false, but we aren't sure 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:00.879 whether it's true or false. And of course, to go 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.720 back to a previous episode, you're kind of anchoring my 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:08.199 expectations by throwing out without any population data in my 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.840 head about Greenland, like that's suddenly all I have to 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.760 go on, Oh yeah, that's interesting. Also, so like it 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:17.160 could be three thousand or it could be like a million, 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.840 and either you're sort of moving your guests range toward fifty. 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:24.680 So the thing they point out is, even though most 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.320 people don't know what the population of Greenland is, we're 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.159 often willing, into some extent able to make guesses as 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.480 to whether statements like this are true. So where does 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.800 this semantic knowledge come from? When we feel like we 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:39.919 have knowledge to offer a guess about what the population 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:43.600 of Greenland is even when we don't really know what 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.520 is that what allows us to judge these questions? And 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:52.200 the authors note that frequency is a really powerful variable 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.600 in all kinds of judgments we make about the world. 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:59.439 So they hypothesize that quote frequency might also serve as 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:04.080 the major access route that plausible statements have into our 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:08.240 pool of general knowledge. So the idea is that we 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:12.000 build our knowledge base based on how frequently we are 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.959 exposed to ideas. You hear an idea a lot, and 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:17.960 that gets reinforced in the knowledge base. You've never heard 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.000 an idea before, or you don't hear it a lot, 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:22.480 it doesn't get reinforced, and it doesn't exist in the 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:26.520 knowledge base. So here's the experimental part. Researchers came up 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:28.720 with a list of a hundred and forty true statements 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:32.359 and false statements, crafted so they all sound plausible. Yeah, 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:34.600 they could be true, you know, the average person would 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:37.920 be unsure whether or not they're true. And the statements 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:42.480 were on all kinds of subjects like geography, arts and literature, history, sports, 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:47.040 current events science. A few examples of true statements included 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:52.000 things like Cairo, Egypt has a larger population than Chicago, Illinois, 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.800 and French horn players get cash bonuses to stay in 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:59.320 the U. S. Arm True. Well, i'd see it. I 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:01.680 should have joined the army after all. See, I was 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:04.000 a french horn player really in high school. Yeah, I 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.560 didn't know that. What's it like playing the french horn. 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:08.919 It's just, you know, there's a lot of spit and 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:12.480 a lot of shoving your hand up horns. That's it. 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:15.439 Otherwise it's like playing a trumpet. Now. See I actually 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:17.760 played trumpet, and it's a lot less fun than what 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.399 you're describing. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. There is 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.040 an elegance to the way you hold it, and you again, 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:26.200 you have your hand in the inside the horn. I 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:28.920 don't know. Being a trumpet player to me always felt 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:33.760 like being a person who's complaining at full volume. Yeah, yeah, 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.560 there is. There's more of an outward stance with the trumpet, right, 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:39.960 you're blasting outward, But in the French horn, you it's 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:45.040 it's more like you're playing music into yourself. That's quite beautiful, 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:47.960 more beautiful than any music I ever played on the 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.040 French horn. Uh So we got to get back to 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:53.920 the study. Okay, so that's that's supposedly true. French horn 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:55.960 players at the time got cash bonuses to stay in 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:58.600