The generality of the relation between familiarity and judged validity
Abstract
Abstract Using factual information of uncertain truth value as the stimulus material, previous investigators have found that repeated statements are rated more valid than non‐repeated statements. Experiments 1 and 1A were designed to determine if this effect would also occur for opinion statements and for statements initially rated either true or false. Subjects were exposed to a 108‐statement list one week and a second list of the same length a week later. This second list was comprised of some of the statements seen earlier plus some statements seen for the first time. Results suggested that all types of repeated statements are rated as more valid than their non‐repeated counterparts. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the validity‐enhancing effect of repetition does not occur in subject domains about which a person claims not be knowledgeable. From the results of both studies we concluded that familiarity is a basis for the judged validity of statements. The relation between this phenomenon and the judged validity of decisions and predictions was also discussed.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Familiarity is a key determinant of the illusory truth effect; when something seems familiar it is easier to process and one is more inclined to believe it, regardless of whether the statement is factually true or false or was initially rated as credible or questionable.
“Familiarity appears as a key determinant of this effect; indeed, when something seems familiar is easier to process and one is more inclined to believe it [24], regardless of whether the statement is factually true or false [22, 47] or was initially rated as credible or questionable [48].”
From Misinformation lingers in memory: Failure of three pro-vaccination strategies (2017) · cites this paper as [48]
Cites
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.185.4157.1124 · Cited by 28,810 · see citing works
Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1975) · Utility, Probability, and Human Decision Making · doi:10.1007/978-94-010-1834-0_8 · Cited by 22,650 · see citing works
Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9 · Cited by 9,984 · see citing works
Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure
Zajonc, R. B. (1968) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0025848 · Cited by 6,745 · see citing works
(2017) · doi:10.5040/9798400682018.ch-003 · Cited by 2,247 · see citing works
Confidence in judgment: persistence of the illusion of validity
Einhorn, H. J., & Hogarth, R. M. (1978) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.85.5.395 · Cited by 1,209 · see citing works
Kilpatrick, F. P. (1954) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/h0050834 · Cited by 967 · see citing works
Frequency and the conference of referential validity
Hasher, L., Goldstein, D., & Toppino, T. (1977) · Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(77)80012-1 · Cited by 920 · see citing works
Self-Generated Attitude Change
Tesser, A. (1978) · Advances in experimental social psychology · doi:10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60010-6 · Cited by 653 · see citing works
Allport, D. A. (2024) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.4324/9781003582885-4 · Cited by 633 · see citing works
Text processing of domain-related information for individuals with high and low domain knowledge
Spilich, G. J., Vesonder, G., Chiesi, H. L., & Voss, J. F. (1979) · Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(79)90155-5 · Cited by 515 · see citing works
Ross, L. D., Lepper, M. R., Strack, F., & Steinmetz, J. L. (1977) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.35.11.817 · Cited by 319 · see citing works
Credibility of repeated statements: Memory for trivia.
Bacon, F. (1979) · Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Learning & Memory · doi:10.1037//0278-7393.5.3.241 · Cited by 291 · see citing works
Harrison, A. A. (1977) · Advances in experimental social psychology · doi:10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60354-8 · Cited by 162 · see citing works
Credibility of repeated statements: Memory for trivia.
Bacon, F. T. (1979) · Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Learning & Memory · doi:10.1037/0278-7393.5.3.241 · Cited by 160 · see citing works
On believing what we remember.
Begg, I., Armour, V., & Kerr, T. (1985) · Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement · doi:10.1037/h0080140 · Cited by 147 · see citing works
Repetition and Rated Truth Value of Statements
Schwartz, M. (1982) · The American Journal of Psychology · doi:10.2307/1422132 · Cited by 104 · see citing works
External validity of laboratory experiments: the frequency-validity relationship
Gigerenzer, G. (1984) · The American Journal of Psychology · doi:10.2307/1422594 · Cited by 98 · see citing works
Pragmatic Inferences and Type of Processing
Barclay, C. R., Toglia, M. P., & Chevalier, D. S. (1984) · The American Journal of Psychology · doi:10.2307/1422601 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Gordon, G. (1963) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Prior exposure increases perceived accuracy of fake news
Pennycook, G., Cannon, T. D., & Rand, D. G. (2018) · Journal of Experimental Psychology General · doi:10.1037/xge0000465 · Cited by 1,268 · see citing works
Imagination inflation: Imagining a childhood event inflates confidence that it occurred
Garry, M., Manning, C. G., Loftus, E. F., & Sherman, S. J. (1996) · Psychonomic Bulletin & Review · doi:10.3758/bf03212420 · Cited by 648 · see citing works
The truth about the truth: a meta-analytic review of the truth effect
Dechêne, A., Stahl, C., Hansen, J., & Wänke, M. (2010) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1177/1088868309352251 · Cited by 592 · see citing works
How warnings about false claims become recommendations
Skurnik, I., Yoon, C., Park, D. C., & Schwarz, N. (2005) · Journal of Consumer Research · doi:10.1086/426605 · Cited by 446 · see citing works
Misinformation lingers in memory: Failure of three pro-vaccination strategies
Pluviano, S., Watt, C., & Della Sala, S. (2017) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0181640 · Cited by 273 · see citing works
Peter, C., & Koch, T. (2016) · Science Communication · doi:10.1177/1075547015613523 · Cited by 124 · see citing works
Fluency, familiarity, aging, and the illusion of truth
Parks, C. M., & Toth, J. P. (2006) · Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition · doi:10.1080/138255890968691 · Cited by 109 · see citing works
The illusory truth effect leads to the spread of misinformation
Vellani, V., Zheng, S., Ercelik, D., & Sharot, T. (2023) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105421 · Cited by 83 · see citing works
Repetition increases both the perceived truth and fakeness of information: An ecological account
Corneille, O., Mierop, A., & Unkelbach, C. (2020) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104470 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
- Authors
- Arkes, H. R., Hackett, C., & Boehm, L.
- Affiliations
- Ohio University (US)
- University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh (US)
- Corresponding author
- Arkes, Hal R.
- ORCID
- Arkes, Hal R.
- Venue
- Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1989-04
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 81-94
- ISSN
- 0894-3257 (ISSN-L)
- 1099-0771
- OpenAlex
- W2026371697
- Cited by
- 229
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 0.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Behavioral Decision Making (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Keywords
- familiarity, repetition, opinion statements, factual claims, truth judgments, knowledge claims, decision validity, predictive validity
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
