Most people know someone who tells stories with a touch of exaggeration.
They recount everyday events with flair, adding dramatic details and embellishments to capture attention. Even when we know that some of what they say is inaccurate, we often find ourselves listening closely the next time they speak and being influenced by what they tell us.
Why does this happen? Why is the human brain so reluctant to ignore information, even when it comes from a source we know cannot be trusted?
Why we still pay attention to unreliable sources
According to a study published in PLOS Computational Biology, knowing that a source is unreliable is not always enough to stop us being influenced by it.
Researchers from the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and France conducted five experiments involving 158 participants from the UK. Participants were asked to observe six coloured squares, either red or blue, each representing a different information source.
A percentage displayed above each square indicated how often that source told the truth.
Some sources provided accurate information more often than not. Others were correct only half the time, while some consistently provided incorrect information.
Sources with accuracy rates above 50 per cent were considered reliable. Those at exactly 50 per cent were effectively unreliable, while sources below 50 per cent generally provided incorrect information, meaning the rational choice would have been to ignore them.
The participants, however, did not always behave in that logical way.
Even sources identified as completely unreliable continued to influence decision-making. According to the computational model used by the researchers, participants treated sources with a 50 per cent accuracy rate as though they were reliable between 54 and 62 per cent of the time.
In other words, even information with no real predictive value still managed to gain influence.
How the brain processes information
Researchers found something else particularly striking.
Participants continued to be influenced by sources even when they already knew how often those sources were wrong.
The researchers believe one explanation is that repeated exposure makes information more noticeable. Even when we are certain we should ignore a claim, its constant presence can still affect how we judge and evaluate situations.
Social media provides a clear example.
Information may be disputed, fact-checked or labelled as misleading. Yet it still reaches users and occupies space in their thinking.
The study also found that timing matters. More recent information tended to have a stronger influence on decisions than older information.
The findings do not prove that people believe fake news.
The experiments used coloured squares rather than real news stories.
What the research highlights instead is the mechanism through which people interpret information and how difficult it can be to completely disregard questionable sources.
They knew the source was unreliable, but were influenced anyway
Participants were, to some extent, aware that their decisions were being shaped by unreliable sources.
Yet that awareness did not prevent the effect.
As the study states:
"Paradoxically, participants were aware of some of these biases and could identify which sources had influenced their choices, suggesting that awareness of the error is not necessarily sufficient."
The findings come at a time when people are exposed to a constant flow of information, particularly through social media.
In such an environment, understanding whether a source is trustworthy remains important. Equally important is assessing the information itself before accepting it as accurate, even when it has been repeated many times.
Source: newmoney.gr
