After people realize the facts have been fudged, they do their best to set the record straight: judges tell juries to forget misleading testimony; newspapers publish errata. But even explicit warnings to ignore misinformation cannot erase the damage done, according to a new study from the University of Western Australia.
Psychologists asked college students to read an account of an accident involving a busload of elderly passengers. The students were then told that, actually, those on the bus were not elderly. For some students, the information ended there. Others were told the bus had in fact been transporting a college hockey team. And still others were warned about what psychologists call the continued influence of misinformation—that people tend to have a hard time ignoring what they first heard, even if they know it is wrong—and that they should be extra vigilant about getting the story straight.
Students who had been warned about misinformation or given the alternative story were less likely than control subjects to make inferences using the old information later—but they still erred sometimes, agreeing with statements such as “the passengers found it difficult to exit the bus because they were frail.”
This result shows that “even if you understand, remember and believe the retractions, this misinformation will still affect your inferences,” says Western Australia psychologist Ullrich Ecker, an author of the study. Our memory is constantly connecting new facts to old and tying different aspects of a situation together, so that we may still unconsciously draw on facts we know to be wrong to make decisions later. “Memory has evolved to be both stable and flexible,” Ecker says, “but that also has a downside.” [For more on how memory relies on connections and makes inferences, see “Making Connections,” by Anthony J. Greene; Scientific American Mind, July/August 2010.]
This article was originally published with the title Lingering Lies.
See what we're tweeting about
8 Comments
Add CommentWhen I saw the header, I thought this was about the internet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPoliticians have know this for generations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis result shows that “even if you understand, remember and believe the retractions, this misinformation will still affect your inferences,”
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--------------
Perhaps it should. After all, something made the lawyer reveal the inadmissable evidence- it may be factually correct, but not legally revealed.
Something made the initial report claim the bus was full of elderly people- instead of hockey players.
Without knowing *why* information was said to be wrong- can we really dismiss it.
Perhaps the team's coach was elderly, thus confusing the person who gave the first report. There is definate advantages to remember "what was told us incorrectly" as it might give us clues to a more complete picture.
Certainly as an IT professional I don't like to delete bad data. I want access to it- there is usually a reason it is what it is- and there is often value in "bad data".
...also lawyers. As I understand it's common practice to introduce items and issues that will certainly be excluded from the official court record, since they will still be considered by the jury regardless of the judge's rulings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry for inadvertently repeating you legal point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn information systems, identified and isolated 'bad data' is valuable as evidence of some specific processing error that should be corrected... Unfortunately, peoples' memories are not so discrete.
Astronomer's perception of dark matter illustrates how related issues affect the recognition of misinformation - please see my comments 10-12 posted to:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=world-science-festival-the-dark-side-of-universe-live-stream
There I attempt to explain how I (and independently, several professional physicists - references included) determined that the establishment of requirements for galactic dark matter arose in the 1970s from a basic misconception caused by improperly applying simplified laws of planetary motion to complex galactic objects.
In most religions, the second biggest sin is to sow misunderstanding among people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReason and logic have no bearing on the facts that are illustrated here - none at all. Once something is seen, heard or experienced, it can never been unseen, unheard or unexperienced. False information, once it is entered into memory is in memory forever, and will be forever available to and referenced by mental processes, which are below the level of conscious awareness, but which feed output to conscious awareness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen false information is uncovered, unless it is accompanied by a strong emotion and memory of the information being false and the source as being deliberately deceptive and unreliable, that false information will remain in memory as if it were true, and it will continue to influence the mind of the person who possesses it.
For you IT types, you retain bad data at your own peril.