People are more likely to believe a true or false claim if it is paired with a photograph, a researcher from The Australian National University (ANU) has found.
Dr Eryn Newman, from the ANU Research School of Psychology, has been finding out how people find truth in a fake-news era.
In her research, Dr Newman has found that people make the decision to trust information if it has pictures to illustrate the ideas.
โPhotos trick us to believe things are true even when they donโt provide evidence for an idea,โ said Dr Eryn Newman.
โFor example, when we present a claim about politician or celebrity, people were more likely to believe it when it is paired with a photo of them โ even if it is just a stock photo that provides no evidence.
โOur body of work has found pictures influence belief on all types of topics. It is across the board. We have found the same effect with claims about science, wine, stock markets, general knowledge or celebrities.โ
Dr Newman said her research is giving a good insight into how people come to believe things are true.
โIn this fake news era, we are seeing new ways in which people can succumb to misinformation and I am looking at why they believe it,โ said Dr Newman.
โWe have found it doesnโt really matter what the claim is about, as long as there is a related photograph with it, it will nudge people toward believing it.
โIt might be something like โturtles are deafโ with a photograph of a turtle in the ocean. Or โNick Cave is aliveโ or โNick Cave is deadโ with the same photograph and it leads people to believe both claims in different experiments.โ
The ANU researcher says people can be swayed away from their own general knowledge on a subject with the addition of a simple decorative photo.
โWe gave people a false claim about coral and the effects of climate change alongside a photo of a coral reef. People were more likely to believe the claim, even though the photo of the coral didnโt prove anything about the quality of the information in the statement,โ said Dr Newman.
She said her findings are not limited to misinformation via fake news.
โIt is a bigger issue than just fake news. We are all susceptible. It is very hard to detect the variables that affect our judgements in the moment, and we donโt always apply general knowledge โ even when we have it availableโ said Dr Newman.
โWhat we are working on right now is looking at ways we can unwind these effects and to get a better understanding of how we can protect ourselves from this cognitive bias.โ
Dr Newman will be presenting her findings at the ANU Spring Workshop in Social Psychology, โTruth in a Post-Truth Eraโ, on 6 December.
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