Finding the Effect of Repetition on

Validity of Information
Introduction
Cognitive Psychology:
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), cognitive psychology is the “study
of higher mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, and
thinking.” As a scientific study of mind and mental functioning, the core focus of modern cognitive
psychology is on studying how people acquire, process, and store information within the complex
computing system known as the human brain. Therefore, cognitive psychologists are most concerned with
studying how we think, perceive, remember, forget, solve problems, focus, and learn.

Information Processing:
At the very heart of cognitive psychology is the idea of information processing. Cognitive
psychology sees the individual as a processor of information, in much the same way that a computer takes
in information and follows a program to produce an output. For a human mind various rational processes
as well as some irrational believes or cognitive biases dictate for information processing.
Illusory truth effect:
The illusory truth effect (also known as the validity effect, truth effect or the reiteration effect) is
the tendency to believe information to be correct after repeated exposure. This phenomenon was first
identified in a 1977 study at Villanova University and Temple University. When truth is assessed, people
rely on whether the information is in line with their understanding or if it feels familiar. The first
condition is logical as people compare new information with what they already know to be true.
Repetition makes statements easier to process relative to new, unrepeated statements, leading people to
believe that the repeated conclusion is more truthful. The illusory truth effect has also been linked to
"hindsight bias", in which the recollection of confidence is skewed after the truth has been received. The
illusory truth effect plays a significant role in such fields as election campaigns, advertising, news media,
and political propaganda.
Causes:
❖ Humans have a major tendency to accept that information plausible or more valid which
conforms to their previous knowledge or prior experience (Familiarity covers rationality
❖ The feeling when hearing an obviously true information is same as the feeling when hearing the
familiar information of past.
❖ Lisa Fazio, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University, explained that after hearing information a
second and third time, your brain misinterprets the repetition as a signal for it being true. The
fluency and frequency of the information you hear translates into a gut-feeling of truth.
Most of the time, this shortcut in our mental processes is beneficial. We don’t have to think long and hard
every time someone tells us that plants need water to grow. We have heard it so many times that we
understand it as true. But, when the illusory truth comes into effect, and the information we are being fed
is false, it can cause massive problems.
Hindsight bias:
Some psychologist links the truth effect to the phenomenon known as "hindsight bias", described
as a situation in which the recollection of confidence is skewed after the truth or falsity has been received.
The truth effect (which they call "the reiteration effect") may be described as a subset of hindsight bias.

Hypothesis:
Repetition makes information seem more plausible.

Methodology
General experiment design:
Experiment was conducted in groups: one group as experimental group and other as control
group.

Both groups had 10 members each.

Subject:

Students of undergraduate from different departments of University of Punjab. The ages were
between 19-21 years.

Apparatus and equipment:

Data recording sheets, stationery, 2 stories (one for experimental and other for control)

Procedure:
Experiment was conducted in two groups; experimental and control group. Allocating the
students to either group was totally random.

The experimental group was given a sheet with a story written on it. In this story “repetition” of
plausible but false information (about the location of proposal by Michael, i.e. stairs) was followed. The
subjects were directed to read the story once and, after a short pause, they were asked to recall the
information in the story according to the questions in the data recording sheet.

The control group was given a story without the repetition of false plausible information. Similarly, they
were asked to recall the story according to the questions in the data recording sheets.

The data recording sheets of both the groups were then compared.
Discussion and conclusion:

The experiment was successfully conducted and the hypothesis was proved that repetition
makes things seem more plausible whether true or false. This phenomenon is named as Truth Illusory
effect. The effect is that familiarity gained through the repetition of the fact can/do overpower
rationality. One reason for students to fall a prey to this effect was that humans tend to achieve the
goals with least amount of energy, owing to evolution, (here the thinking) and they believed that part of
information true which was repeated again and again. In Control Group, the initial true location of
proposal was mentioned only once and the manipulated location (that was repeated in experimental
group i.e. stairs) was not mentioned at all. The subjects in this scenario reported the true location. This
proves that it was only the repetition of information about location of proposal that changed the
subject’s response.

The effect had been in human knowledge since centuries and has been used for Flash mobs, political
agenda setting, mass killing e.g. Hitler used this effect to inculcate the fact that Jews are a threat in
common German people. Political parties during their campaigns use the effect to overpower the
rationality of the population and gain the desired goals. This effect is powerful when the subjects are
tired or information is distorted with other types of information.

The illusory truth effect has far reaching application in understanding societal trends and
inclinations toward a specific idea or class or person. For example, spread of a fake news, better
marketing of that brand which could manage more celebrities and people to review about it good.

Novels and literary writings do the same thing. These writing repeat the things which their writers want
to be prevailed in the society and believed as a fact e.g. Carl Marx cursed the capitalism in the worst
possible way by repeating its dangers again and again that labor class had the firm belief to destroy a
capitalist society.