The ‘illusory truth effect’ refers the tendency to believe any information to be correct/accurate after repeated exposure. It’s the result of a flaw in human cognitive processing that goes like this…
When we’re repeatedly exposed to the same information (even if it’s meaningless, false or we’re unaware that we’ve seen it before), it gradually becomes easier for our brains to process. Repeated exposure to a stimulus increases our ‘processing fluency,’ meaning our brain can process the stimulus more efficiently. This is referred to ‘familiarity’ & the human brain LOVES familiarity. The less effort we have to consciously expend to process something, the more positively we will feel about that thing. We’re even more likely to accept simple, easy to understand concepts as “more true” than complex, nuanced concepts.
The ‘mere exposure effect’ describes the human tendency to feel more positively about things we’ve encountered before (even if only briefly or unconsciously). Again: we prefer what is already familiar to us! This effect tends to be strongest concerning statements about subjects in which we fancy ourselves knowledgable. The irony is that studies show participants with the lowest scores & worst performances, in any subject matter, tend to be the most egregious over estimators of their own abilities/comprehension. Not having a skill or understanding means you’re unable to recognize said lack.
So (follow me here) those of us who know THE LEAST about a subject will think we know THE MOST, because we don’t even know enough to recognize the scope of our ignorance & therefore, because they mistake ourselves as experts on said subject, we’re most vulnerable to both the mere exposure & illusory truth effect, because we’ll swallow repeated statements about said subject (even if we’re falsehoods) as correct/accurate… all because it feels cozy, familiar & self-affirming. Let that soak in for a moment.
