369. The Misinformation Effect

0:00Have you ever wondered how two people could look at the exact same thing and come away with two very different opinions on what it means? Or have you been baffled how someone could believe something that, to you, is obviously untrue? This kind of thing happens all the time. But how can you be sure you're the one seeing things accurately? Hi, I'm Kathy, a homeschool mom, passionate about teaching critical thinking to the next generation, so they're propaganda proof and impossible to fool with bad arguments. And I like to have fun doing it. Welcome to the Filter Through a Brain Cell Podcast. Hey, what is up, thinkers? Kathy, I've been here. So less than off today's episode by reviewing a type of media bias that we covered earlier in season two called omission of source attribution. And I know that's a mouthful. But do you want to see if you can remember what omission by source attribution might be? All right, so omission of source attribution happens when the media makes statements or presents data without saying where the information came from or without saying who specifically

1:04said it. And without proper attribution, meaning telling them where they got the information from, people who are reading or listening, they cannot know whether the information is credible or true. They can't understand the proper context. And they don't even know where to go begin looking to explore it further themselves. So if you want to review or hear more about this media bias, go back and you can check out episode 289. And it has been a while since I have read a review here on the podcast. So I thought I'd share a recent comment that a listener left. I think this one was on Instagram. And this is from the username mom gummering. She said this, we love your podcast. It is brought forth so many great conversations about critical thinking and more. Thank you. Short and sweet and simple. I love it. Thank you so much, mom gummering, for leaving that comment. It truly, you guys, it makes my day to hear from my listeners and to hear how this podcast is helping you and your family. And so can I just ask all of you, if you haven't done so, would you take about 30 seconds

2:04and leave a five star review wherever you're listening and even better, leave a short comment? It truly is the best way to thank a podcaster for the content that they put out. And it helps other people be able to find and want to listen to the podcast. And I will appreciate it very much. I do read those and it means the world to me. So thank you. Okay, let's dive into today's new bias called the Misinformation Effect. So the Misinformation Effect is our tendency to remember something differently after we've been exposed to incorrect or misleading information about it. So in other words, it's not like our memories aren't like video recordings. Our memories can actually be changed or be affected by things that we hear or read after an event happens. Okay, let me give you a few examples of what this can sound like. Imagine you and your friends are playing basketball. And later that evening, someone says, did you see Jake trip over the ball and then we laugh because it was hilarious. Now even if Jake never tripped or maybe you don't quite remember him tripping, after hearing

3:08it a few times and seeing everybody else talking about it, you might start thinking that you remember it happening too. Or maybe your brother says, do you remember when we got soaked on that camping trip in Michigan? Even though really it only sprinkled for a few minutes, but after talking about it enough, you may begin remembering a much bigger storm than there really was. And it could even happen if somebody tells you that a teacher was angry during class. When really the teacher was just serious. And before long, you start remembering the teacher looking really upset too. Or maybe your family is talking about a vacation from years ago and somebody confidently remembers seeing a dolphin when there was never a dolphin. And what can happen is the more you hear the story from somebody else, even if it's incorrect, the more your own memory can begin to change. So why does our brain do this? Well, our brains commit this bias because memory isn't stored as a perfect recording. It's not like a video. Every time we remember something, our brains actually are reconstructing the memory from

4:11pieces. And new information can accidentally get mixed in with the original event. And this has actually been studied. There was a famous researcher named Elizabeth Loftus. And in her classic experiments, people, what they had the people do is they had people watch videos of car accidents. And then they later asked them questions using different words. So the participants who were asked how fast the cars were going when they smashed into each other, all estimated higher speeds than those who heard the word when they hit each other. So just by changing the word, how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other, versus how fast were the cars going when they hit each other, just that alone changed the estimated speeds that people gave. And more surprisingly, people who heard the word smashed were much more likely to later think that they remember seeing broken glass even though there was no broken glass in the video.

5:11So her research showed that something as simple as the wording of a question can actually change what people remember. So we've seen the misinformation effect play out in real life through eyewitness testimony in criminal investigations. So police, attorneys, journalists, family members, and even other eyewitnesses can unintentionally influence and change what somebody remembers by the questions they asked or by the details that they repeat. This is one reason why investigators are so careful today about interviewing witnesses in ways that hopefully minimize this effect happening on people's memories of what they saw. So there is a real example of this happening. Let me show this with you guys. So in the 1980s, a woman named Jennifer Thompson Kanino became a key eyewitness in an assault case that went to court. And she confidently identified a man named Ronald Cotton as the attacker. Yes, that's him.

6:12She sincerely believed that she had chosen the right person. But what had happened was that over time she had repeatedly seen him and seen pictures of him in police lineups and she had seen him in court and the combination of seeing him and remembering the event together strengthened her memory of him. It's like her brain put him into the memory rather than her memory of the actual attacker. Unfortunately, Ronald Cotton spent more than 10 years in prison before DNA testing proved he was innocent and identified the actual perpetrator. So this case became one of the most famous examples of how eyewitness memories can be unintentionally changed just by suggestion and by repeated exposure. Even when witnesses are completely honest and genuinely want to identify the right person, Jennifer Thompson, she was intelligent. She was sincere and absolutely convinced that she was right. So that is what makes the misinformation effect so powerful and a little unsettling.

7:16It reminds us that our memories don't just fade over time, they can actually kind of change without us realizing it. So what about you? Have you ever found your brain experiencing the misinformation effect? And if so, when? And if you do, here's a question you could ask yourself. Could someone else's version of the story have influenced my memory? Let me say it again. Could someone else's version of the story have influenced my memory? Alright, y'all, that's it for today. Remember, biases happen automatically and will affect your ability to discern the truth. You can slow down your thinking by asking. What am I not seeing and how could my view be incomplete?