Discrepant fluency increases subjective truth

The present experiment tested the hypothesis that perceptual fluency affects truth judgments especially when the fluency has changed. Participants were asked to judge the truth of statements that were printed in different colors. Perceptual fluency was manipulated by color contrast. Change versus no change of fluency was manipulated by using preceding statements that had the same or a different contrast. As expected, highly fluent statements were judged as more probably true than statements with a low fluency but this effect occurred only when the high fluency meant a change from previous fluency. The role of discrepancies in subjective experiences in terms of their informativeness for social judgments is discussed.     

Feeling good and feeling truth: The interactive effects of mood and processing fluency on truth judgments

Can mood states influence the perceived truth of ambiguous or novel information? This study predicted and found that mood can significantly influence people’s reliance on processing fluency when making truth judgments. Fluent information was more likely to be judged as true (the truth effect), and consistent with Bless and Fiedler's (2006) assimilative vs. accommodative processing model, negative mood eliminated, and positive mood maintained people's reliance on processing fluency as an indication of truth. Post hoc analyses confirmed the predicted mood-induced differences in processing style, as judges in a negative mood adopted more accommodative processing and paid greater attention to external stimulus information. The relevance of these results to contemporary affect-cognition theories is discussed, and the real-life implications of mood effects on truth judgments in applied areas are considered.     

Fluency and positivity as possible causes of the truth effect

Statements’ rated truth increases when people encounter them repeatedly. Processing fluency is a central variable to explain this truth effect. However, people experience processing fluency positively, and these positive experiences might cause the truth effect. Three studies investigated positivity and fluency influences on the truth effect. Study 1 found correlations between elicited positive feelings and rated truth. Study 2 replicated the repetition-based truth effect, but positivity did not influence the effect. Study 3 conveyed positive and negative correlations between positivity and truth in a learning phase. We again replicated the truth effect, but positivity only influenced judgments for easy statements in the learning phase. Thus, across three studies, we found positivity effects on rated truth, but not on the repetition-based truth effect: We conclude that positivity does not explain the standard truth effect, but the role of positive experiences for truth judgments deserves further investigation.     

Fluency,Familiarity, Aging,and the Illusion of Truth

ABSTRACT

Research has shown that repeated statements are rated as more credible than new statements. However, little research has examined whether such “illusions of truth” can be produced by contextual (nonmnemonic) influences, or compared to the magnitude of these illusions in younger and older adults. In two experiments, we examined how manipulations of perceptual and conceptual fluency influenced truth and familiarity ratings made by young and older adults. Stimuli were claims about companies or products varying in normative familiarity. Results showed only small effects of perceptual fluency on rated truth or familiarity. In contrast, manipulating conceptual fluency via semantic/textual context had much larger effects on rated truth and familiarity, with the effects modulated by normative company familiarity such that fluency biases were larger for lesser-known companies. In both experiments, young and older adults were equally susceptible to fluency-based biases.     

Effects of perceptual fluency on judgments of truth.

Statements of the form "Osorno is in Chile" were presented in colors that made them easy or difficult to read against a white background and participants judged the truth of the statement. Moderately visible statements were judged as true at chance level, whereas highly visible statements were judged as true significantly above chance level. We conclude that perceptual fluency affects judgments of truth.     

Truth from language and truth from fit: the impact of linguistic concreteness and level of construal on subjective truth

In four experiments, the impact of concreteness of language on judgments of truth was examined. In Experiments 1 and 2, it was found that statements of the very same content were judged as more probably true when they were written in concrete language than when they were written in abstract language. Findings of Experiment 2 also showed that this linguistic concreteness effect on judgments of truth could most likely be attributed to greater perceived vividness of concrete compared to abstract statements. Two further experiments demonstrated an additional fit effect: The truth advantage of concrete statements occurred especially when participants were primed with a concrete (vs. abstract) mind-set (Experiment 3) or when the statements were presented in a spatially proximal (vs. distant) location (Experiment 4). Implications for communication strategies are discussed.     

Reversing the truth effect: learning the interpretation of processing fluency in judgments of truth

Repeated statements receive higher truth ratings than new statements. Given that repetition leads to greater experienced processing fluency, the author proposes that fluency is used in truth judgments according to its ecological validity. Thus, the truth effect occurs because people learn that fluency and truth tend to be positively correlated. Three experiments tested this notion. Experiment 1 replicated the truth effect by directly manipulating processing fluency; Experiment 2 reversed the effect by manipulating the correlation between fluency and truth in a learning phase. Experiment 3 generalized this reversal by showing a transfer of a negative correlation between perceptual fluency (due to color contrast) and truth to truth judgments when fluency is due to prior exposure (i.e., repetition).     

Fluency and Attitudes

The goal of this article is to review how, when, and why fluency, or processing ease, affects attitudes. The current article first defines fluency and then discusses its direct impact on attitudes, noting that fluency usually makes attitudes more positive and that it does so for a wide array of attitude objects. Mechanisms and moderators of these direct effects are also described. The article then summarizes how fluency can affect attitudes indirectly, through its impact on other judgments (like perceptions of confidence or truth) and on cognitive operations (like information processing). The article ends by highlighting a few areas where additional research is likely to reap impressive benefits.     

Fluency, familiarity, aging, and the illusion of truth

Research has shown that repeated statements are rated as more credible than new statements. However, little research has examined whether such "illusions of truth" can be produced by contextual (nonmnemonic) influences, or compared to the magnitude of these illusions in younger and older adults. In two experiments, we examined how manipulations of perceptual and conceptual fluency influenced truth and familiarity ratings made by young and older adults. Stimuli were claims about companies or products varying in normative familiarity. Results showed only small effects of perceptual fluency on rated truth or familiarity. In contrast, manipulating conceptual fluency via semantic/textual context had much larger effects on rated truth and familiarity, with the effects modulated by normative company familiarity such that fluency biases were larger for lesser-known companies. In both experiments, young and older adults were equally susceptible to fluency-based biases.     

Initial judgment task and delay of the final validity-rating task moderate the truth effect

Repeatedly seen or heard statements are typically judged to be more valid than statements one has never encountered before. This phenomenon has been referred to as the truth effect. We conducted two experiments to assess the plasticity of the truth effect under different contextual conditions. Surprisingly, we did not find a truth effect in the typical judgment design when using a ten minutes interval between statement repetitions. However, we replicated the truth effect when changing the judgment task at initial statement exposure or when using an interval of one week rather than ten minutes. Because none of the current truth effect theories can fully account for these context effects, we conclude that the cognitive processes underlying truth judgments are more complex than has hitherto been assumed. To close the theoretical gap, we propose a revised fluency attribution hypothesis as a possible explanation of our findings.     

The informative value of type of repetition: Perceptual and conceptual fluency influences on judgments of truth

We contrast the effects of conceptual and perceptual fluency resulting from repetition in the truth effect. In Experiment 1, participants judged either verbatim or paraphrased repetitions, which reduce perceptual similarity to original statements. Judgments were made either immediately after the first exposure to the statements or after one week. Illusions of truth emerged for both types of repetition, with delay reducing both effects. In Experiment 2, participants judged verbatim and paraphrased repetitions with either the same or a contradictory meaning of original statements. In immediate judgments, illusions of truth emerged for repetitions with the same meaning and illusions of falseness for contradictory repetitions. In the delayed session, the illusion of falseness disappeared for contradictory statements. Results are discussed in terms of the contributions of recollection of stimulus details and of perceptual and conceptual fluency to illusions of truth at different time intervals and judgmental context conditions.     

Symbolic Sequence Effects on Consumers’ Judgments of Truth for Brand Claims

We introduce symbolic sequence effects—the consequences of whether the sequence of the initial letters of a pair of words (e.g., a word representing a putative cause and another word representing a putative effect) conforms to the structure of symbolic sequences that are stored in the mind as overlearned natural language traces (“natural sequence”). We synthesize insights from psychophysics as well as numerical and natural language symbolic representations to demonstrate that consumers are able to unconsciously perceive the mere sequence of symbols contained in a brand claim, and that this sequence information influences judgments of truth. Across three experiments, we showed that when a brand claim is structured in a way that is consistent with the natural sequence of symbols (“A causes B” rather than “B causes A”), people experience feelings of sequential fluency, which in turn influences judgments of truth. This occurs despite the inability of participants to attribute the true source of the feelings. Our results suggest that carefully designed brand claims are likely to benefit from this natural sequencing. These findings provide important contributions to the literatures on processing fluency, branding, and advertising. These findings also have sobering societal implications and warn that fake news might be more persuasive if the perpetrators understand symbolic sequencing techniques.     

Effects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective Judgments

According to a two-step account of the mere-exposure effect, repeated exposure leads to the subjective feeling of perceptual fluency, which in turn influences liking. If so, perceptual fluency manipulated by means other than repetition should influence liking. In three experiments, effects of perceptual fluency on affective judgments were examined. In Experiment 1, higher perceptual fluency was achieved by presenting a matching rather than nonmatching prime before showing a target picture. Participants judged targets as prettier if preceded by a matching rather than nonmatching prime. In Experiment 2, perceptual fluency was manipulated by figure-ground contrast. Stimuli were judged as more pretty, and less ugly, the higher the contrast. In Experiment 3, perceptual fluency was manipulated by presentation duration. Stimuli shown for a longer duration were liked more, and disliked less. We concluded (a) that perceptual fluency increases liking and (b) that the experience of fluency is affectively positive, and hence attributed to positive but not to negative features, as reflected in a different impact on positive and negative judgments.     

Ease-of-learning judgments are based on both processing fluency and beliefs

Processing fluency influences many types of judgments. Some metacognitive research suggests that the influence of processing fluency may be mediated by participants’ beliefs. The current study explores the influence of processing fluency and beliefs on ease-of-learning (EOL) judgments. In two experiments (Exp 1: n?=?94; Exp 2: n?=?146), participants made EOL judgments on 24 six-letter concrete nouns, presented in either a constant condition (high fluency) with upper-case letters (e.g., BUCKET) or an alternating condition (low fluency) with mixed upper- and lower-case letters (e.g., bUcKeT). After judging words individually, participants studied the words and completed a free recall test. Finally, participants indicated what condition they believed made the words more likely to be learned. Results show constant-condition words were judged as more likely to be learned than alternating condition words, but the difference varied with beliefs. Specifically, the difference was biggest when participants believed the constant condition made words more likely to be learned, followed by believing there was no difference, and then believing the alternating condition made words more likely to be learned. Thus, we showed that processing fluency has a direct effect on EOL judgments, but the effect is moderated by beliefs.     

真理、符合与收缩论

The central claim of this essay is that many deflationary theories of truth are variants of the correspondence theory of truth. Essential to the correspondence theory of truth is the proposal that objective features of the world are the truthmakers of statements. Many advocates of deflationary theories (including F. P. Ramsay, P. F. Strawson and Paul Horwich) remain committed to this proposal. Although T-sentences (statements of the form “s is true iff p”) are presented by advocates of deflationary theories of truth as truisms or analytic truths, T-sentences are often understood as entailing commitment to the central proposal of the correspondence theory.     

On the Mind Dependence of Truth

The claim that truth is mind dependent has some initial plausibility only if truth bearers are taken to be mind dependent entities such as beliefs or statements. Even on that assumption, however, the claim is not uncontroversial. If it is spelled out as the thesis that “in a world devoid of mind nothing would be true”, then everything depends on how the phrase ‘true in world w’ is interpreted. If ‘A is true in w’ is interpreted as ‘A is true of w’ (i.e. ‘w satisfies A’s truth conditions’, the claim need not be true. If on the other hand it is interpreted as ‘A is true of w and exists in w’ then the claim is trivially true, though devoid of any antirealistic efficacy. Philosophers like Heidegger and Rorty, who hold that truth is mind dependent but reality is not, must regard such principles as “A if and only if it is true that A” as only contingently true, which may be a good reason to reject the mind dependence of truth anyway.     

The learned interpretation of cognitive fluency

The fluency of cognitive processes influences many judgments: Fluently processed statements are judged to be true, fluently processed instances are judged to be frequent, and fluently processed names are judged to be famous. According to a cue-learning approach, these effects of experienced fluency arise because the fluency cue is interpreted differentially in accordance with its learned validity. Two experiments tested this account by manipulating the fluency cue's validity. Fluency was manipulated by color contrast (Experiment 1) and by required mental rotation (Experiment 2). If low fluency was correlated with a required affirmative or "old" response (and high fluency with a negative or "new" response) in a training phase, participants showed a reversal of the classic pattern in the recognition phase: Low-fluency stimuli had a higher probability than high-fluency stimuli to be classified as old. Thus, the interpretation and therefore the impact of fluency depended on the cue's learned validity.     

Fluency does not express implicit knowledge of artificial grammars

It is commonly held that implicit knowledge expresses itself as fluency. A perceptual clarification task was used to examine the relationship between perceptual processing fluency, subjective familiarity, and grammaticality judgments in a task frequently used to produce implicit knowledge, artificial grammar learning (AGL). Four experiments examined the effects of naturally occurring differences and manipulated differences in perceptual fluency, where decisions were based on a brief exposure to test-strings (during the clarification task only) or normal exposure. When perceptual fluency was not manipulated, it was weakly related to familiarity and grammaticality judgments, but unrelated to grammatical status and hence not a source of accuracy. Counterbalanced grammatical and ungrammatical strings did not differ in perceptual fluency but differed substantially in subjective familiarity. When fluency was manipulated, faster clarifying strings were rated as more familiar and were more often endorsed as grammatical but only where exposure was brief. Results indicate that subjective familiarity derived from a source other than perceptual fluency, is the primary basis for accuracy in AGL. Perceptual fluency is found to be a dumb heuristic influencing responding only in the absence of actual implicit knowledge.     

Perceptual Fluency and Judgments of Vocal Aesthetics and Stereotypicality

Research has shown that processing dynamics on the perceiver's end determine aesthetic pleasure. Specifically, typical objects, which are processed more fluently, are perceived as more attractive. We extend this notion of perceptual fluency to judgments of vocal aesthetics. Vocal attractiveness has traditionally been examined with respect to sexual dimorphism and the apparent size of a talker, as reconstructed from the acoustic signal, despite evidence that gender‐specific speech patterns are learned social behaviors. In this study, we report on a series of three experiments using 60 voices (30 females) to compare the relationship between judgments of vocal attractiveness, stereotypicality, and gender categorization fluency. Our results indicate that attractiveness and stereotypicality are highly correlated for female and male voices. Stereotypicality and categorization fluency were also correlated for male voices, but not female voices. Crucially, stereotypicality and categorization fluency interacted to predict attractiveness, suggesting the role of perceptual fluency is present, but nuanced, in judgments of human voices.     

Fictional Truth and Make-Believe

The statement “Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth” seems true in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice (even though it may not actually appear in the text) while the statement “Mr. Darcy is a detective” seems false. One explanation for this intuition is that when we read or talk about fictional stories, we implicitly employ the fictional operator “It is fictional that” or “It is part of the story that.” “It is fictional that Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth” expresses a true proposition while “It is fictional that Mr. Darcy is a detective” does not. Fictive statements can be abbreviated as “In F, P”. Determining what statements are fictionally true in a story requires providing truth conditions for statements of the form “In F, P.” This paper proposes an analysis of truth in fiction and examines the notion of make-believe.