Resisting misinformation via discrepancy detection: effects of an unaware suspicion cue

ABSTRACT

Previous studies have shown that contaminating effects of misinformation can be reduced by consciously raising the awareness of eyewitnesses to the discrepancy between the misinformation and the original information (e.g., Tousignant, J. P., Hall, D., & Loftus, E. F. [1986]. Discrepancy detection and vulnerability misleading postevent information. Memory & Cognition, 14(4), 329–338. doi:10.3758/BF03202511). We tested whether similar effects could be obtained without conscious awareness, by drawing on the metaphor “something smells fishy” linking fishy smells and suspicion (Lee, S. W. S., & Schwarz, N. [2012]. Bidirectionality, mediation, and moderation of metaphorical effects: The embodiment of social suspicion and fishy smells. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(5), 737–749. doi:10.1037/a0029708). In a pilot study, we established the replicability and generality of previous findings concerning this metaphorical link. We then examined the effects of the smell-suspicion link on susceptibility to misleading post-event information using the misinformation paradigm. Here, the “something smells fishy” metaphor was used to invoke suspicion and increase discrepancy detection. Forty-eight hours after viewing an event, participants received misinformation in a room sprayed with either a fishy or a neutral smell. As expected, unaware exposure to the fishy smell (compared to the neutral smell) increased discrepancy detection (measured indirectly) and resistance to the contaminating effects of misinformation, eliminating misinformation interference and lowering suggestibility on the final test.

KEYWORDS:

• Misinformation effect
• discrepancy detection
• false memory
• suspicion
• suggestibility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Given that we were interested in examining unaware influences during the exposure to misinformation, asking participants to concurrently note discrepancies was not suitable in the present study.

2 These effect sizes are based on a comparison between the two smell groups regarding the differences between the control and misleading conditions.

3 The target items were not presented in capital letters in the actual experiment.

4 To ensure that there was no lingering smell, the room was aired for two hours after each experimental run.

5 A potential limitation of this measure is that it precludes cases in which participants recollected the discrepancy (i.e., correctly recollected both the original information and the suggested misinformation) but confused the two sources. However, including these cases in the analyses did not alter the pattern of results, suggesting that the effects reported below reflect differences in DD rather than differences in source monitoring.

6 This conclusion is supported by the non-significant difference found between the two smell groups in the proportion of misleading items correctly recalled from the interpolated questions, t(58) = 0.38, p = .708, d = 0.10, suggesting that the lower suggestibility and no misinformation interference found in the fishy-smell group did not seem to derive from less allocation of attention to the misinformation and/or worse memory for the misinformation.