Is it smart to read on your phone? The impact of reading format and culture on the continued influence of misinformation

Abstract

Despite advances in digital technology that have resulted in more people accessing information via mobile devices, little is known about reading comprehension on mobile phones. This research investigated the impact of reading format by comparing sensitivity to misinformation presented either in printed texts or in digital format on mobile phones to readers of English versus Chinese. Participants read pairs of short newspaper-style articles containing a critical piece of information that was either retracted or not retracted, and were later assessed on their memory for critical and general details, as well as inferential judgements related to the retracted information. The average results replicated previous evidence that repeating the original misinformation at the time of retraction enhanced memory updating. However, reading on a mobile phone reduced the likelihood that readers noticed the retraction and updated their memory with alternative information in both language groups and reduced the extent to which inferences were modified by the alternative information in readers of Chinese but not English. Chinese readers showed significantly better general memory, but were more affected by the continued influence of the misinformation. These differences between Chinese and English-speaking participants may reflect cultural influences on the tendency to apply a dialectical rather than an analytic reasoning strategy and incorporate contradictory information into the memory representation of a discourse or event.

The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction

“…Given the well-known attitude-behaviour gap -that attitude change does not readily translate into behavioural effects -researchers should also attempt to use more behavioural measures, such as information-sharing measures, rather than relying exclusively on self-report questionnaires [93][94][95] . Although existing research has yielded valuable insights into how people generally process misinformation (many of which will translate across different contexts and cultures), an increased focus on diversification of samples and more robust methods is likely to provide a better appreciation of important contextual factors and nuanced cultural differences 7,82,205,[257][258][259][260][261][262][263] .…”

Levels of Reading Comprehension in Higher Education: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…In this research, it was controlled that all were printed and unimodal texts, that is, only text. This is essential because the cognitive processes involved in reading comprehension can vary with these factors ( Butcher and Kintsch, 2003 ; Xu et al, 2020 ).…”

Textual complexity adjustments to the English reading comprehension test for undergraduate EFL students

“…Overall, cognitive processes and metacognitive awareness are aspects that a reading comprehension test must elicit for the long term [ 36 , 37 ]. Testers should develop reading tests that reveal test-takers’ cognitive and metacognitive skills.…”