Illusory truth effect
The illusory truth effect (also known as the truth effect, the illusion-of-truth effect, the reiteration effect, the validity effect, and the frequency-validity relationship) is the tendency to believe information to be correct after repeated exposure to the claim in question. This is an illusion that appears due to unconscious cognition.
Tell me about your mother Psychology |
![]() |
For our next session... |
|
Popping into your mind |
v - t - e |
“”"Why are so many people convinced that we only use 10% of our brains, or that Eskimos have no words for snow...?" |
— Chris (Anon)[1] |
This phenomenon has been studied extensively, with the term first appearing in psychology literature in a psychology paper[2] from the late 1970s. The illusion is now backed up by several psychology experiments.[3]
The illusion is thought to be partly caused by the concept of processing fluency,
See also
References
- "The Truth Effect and Other Processing Fluency Miracles". Science Blogs.
- Frequency and the Conference of Referential Validity. Toronto University
- The Truth About the Truth: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Truth Effect. SAGE Journals
You can help RationalWiki by expanding it.