Aging in an “infodemic”: The role of cognition, affect, and experience on news veracity detection during the COVID-19 pandemic

Pehlivanoglu, Didem; Lin, Tian; Joseph, Kevin; Perez, Eliany; Polk, Rebecca; Cahill, Brian; Lighthall, Nichole R.; Ebner, Natalie C.

doi:10.31234/osf.io/3kgq9

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 76 publications

(96 reference statements)

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“…Studies that have assessed the relationship between age and news veracity discernment have generally found them to be significantly negatively correlated, which is precisely what was found in the present study (Brashier & Schacter, 2020;Guess et al, 2019;Pehlivanoglu et al, 2021). This finding may be due to an age-related decline in various cognitive abilities, such as executive control and attention (Verhaeghen & Cerella, 2002).…”

Section: The Demographic Predictors Of News Veracity Discernmentsupporting

confidence: 86%

Effects of Inductive Learning and Gamification on News Veracity Discernment

Modirrousta-Galian¹,

Higham²,

Seabrooke³

2022

Preprint

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This pre-registered study tests a novel psychological intervention to improve news veracity discernment. The main intervention involved inductive learning (IL) training (i.e., practice discriminating between multiple true and fake news exemplars with feedback) with or without gamification. Participants (N = 282 Prolific users) were randomly assigned to either a gamified IL intervention, a non-gamified version of the same IL intervention, a no-treatment control group, or a Bad News intervention, a notable web-based game designed to tackle online misinformation. Following the intervention (if applicable), all participants rated the veracity of a novel set of news headlines. We hypothesized that the gamified intervention would be the most effective for improving news veracity discernment, followed by its non-gamified equivalent, then Bad News, and finally the control group. The results were analyzed with receiver operating characteristic curve analyses, which has previously never been applied to news veracity discernment. The analyses indicated that there were no significant differences between conditions and the Bayes factor indicated very strong evidence for the null. This finding raises questions about the effectiveness of current psychological interventions and contradicts prior research that has supported the efficacy of Bad News. Age, gender, and political leaning all predicted news veracity discrimination.

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Section: The Demographic Predictors Of News Veracity Discernmentsupporting

confidence: 86%

Effects of Inductive Learning and Gamification on News Veracity Discernment

Modirrousta-Galian¹,

Higham²,

Seabrooke³

2022

Preprint

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“…Our study, like the majority of previous work, focused on a rather homogeneous (e.g., in terms of race/ethnicity and age) sample. Based on growing evidence that sensitivity for detection of deceptive cues decreases with chronological age (Ebner et al, 2020;Grilli et al, in press;Zebrowitz, Ward, Boshyan, Gutchess, & Hadjikhani, 2018) as well as varies by gender and marital status (Alves & Wilson, 2008), education (Wood, Liu, Hanoch, Xi, & Klapatch, 2018), and income (James, Boyle, & Bennett, 2014), we propose examining fake news detection using more diverse samples to move this research forward (Pehlivanoglu et al, 2020). For example, older compared to younger individuals were more likely to share fake news (Grinberg, Joseph, Friedland, Swire-Thompson, & Lazer, 2019;Guess et al, 2019).…”

Section: Future Research Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Analytical Reasoning and Source Credibility on the Evaluation of Real and Fake Full-Length News Articles

Pehlivanoglu¹,

Lin²,

Deceus³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Aim: Previous research has focused on accuracy associated with real and fake news presented in the form of news headlines only which does not capture the rich context news is frequently encountered in real life. Additionally, while the impact of analytical reasoning on news evaluation accuracy has commonly been examined, the impact of news source credibility on real and fake news detection is understudied. To address these research gaps, this project examined the role of analytical reasoning and news source credibility on evaluation of real and fake full-length news story articles. The project considered both accuracy and perceived credibility ratings as outcome variables, thus qualifying previous work focused solely on news detection accuracy. Method: We conducted two independent but parallel studies, with Study 2 as a direct replication of Study 1, employing the same design but in a larger sample (Study 1: N = 292 vs. Study 2: N = 357). In both studies, participants viewed 12 full-length news articles (6 real, 6 fake), followed by prompts to evaluate each article’s veracity and credibility. Participants were randomly assigned to view articles with a credible or non-credible source and completed the Cognitive Reflection Test as well as short demographic questions.Findings: Consistent in both studies, higher analytical reasoning was associated with greater fake news accuracy, while analytical reasoning was not associated with real news accuracy. In addition, in both studies, higher analytical reasoning was associated with lower perceived credibility for fake news, while analytical reasoning was not associated with perceived credibility for real news. Furthermore, lower analytical reasoning was associated with greater accuracy for real (but not fake) news from credible compared to non-credible sources, with this effect only detected in Study 2. Conclusions: The novel findings generated in this research are discussed in light of classical vs. naturalistic accounts of decision-making as well as cognitive processes underlying news articles evaluation. The results extend previous findings that analytical reasoning contributes to fake news detection to full-length news articles. Furthermore, news-related cues such as the credibility of the source systematically affected discrimination ability between real and fake news.

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The role of analytical reasoning and source credibility on the evaluation of real and fake full-length news articles

et al. 2021

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Aim Previous research has focused on accuracy associated with real and fake news presented in the form of news headlines only, which does not capture the rich context news is frequently encountered in real life. Additionally, while previous studies on evaluation of real and fake news have mostly focused on characteristics of the evaluator (i.e., analytical reasoning), characteristics of the news stimuli (i.e., news source credibility) and the interplay between the two have been largely ignored. To address these research gaps, this project examined the role of analytical reasoning and news source credibility on evaluation of real and fake full-length news story articles. The project considered both accuracy and perceived credibility ratings as outcome variables, thus qualifying previous work focused solely on news detection accuracy. Method We conducted two independent but parallel studies, with Study 2 as a direct replication of Study 1, employing the same design but in a larger sample (Study 1: N = 292 vs. Study 2: N = 357). In both studies, participants viewed 12 full-length news articles (6 real, 6 fake), followed by prompts to evaluate each article’s veracity and credibility. Participants were randomly assigned to view articles with a credible or non-credible source and completed the Cognitive Reflection Test as well as short demographic questions. Findings Consistent across both studies, higher analytical reasoning was associated with greater fake news accuracy, while analytical reasoning was not associated with real news accuracy. In addition, in both studies, higher analytical reasoning was associated with lower perceived credibility for fake news, while analytical reasoning was not associated with perceived credibility for real news. Furthermore, lower analytical reasoning was associated with greater accuracy for real (but not fake) news from credible compared to non-credible sources, with this effect only detected in Study 2. Conclusions The novel results generated in this research are discussed in light of classical vs. naturalistic accounts of decision-making as well as cognitive processes underlying news articles evaluation. The results extend previous findings that analytical reasoning contributes to fake news detection to full-length news articles. Furthermore, news-related cues such as the credibility of the news source systematically affected discrimination ability between real and fake news.

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Aging in an “infodemic”: The role of cognition, affect, and experience on news veracity detection during the COVID-19 pandemic

Cited by 3 publications

References 76 publications

Effects of Inductive Learning and Gamification on News Veracity Discernment

Effects of Inductive Learning and Gamification on News Veracity Discernment

The Role of Analytical Reasoning and Source Credibility on the Evaluation of Real and Fake Full-Length News Articles

The role of analytical reasoning and source credibility on the evaluation of real and fake full-length news articles

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