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Ironic effects of drawing attention to story errors.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Eslick, AN; Fazio, LK; Marsh, EJ
Published in: Memory (Hove, England)
February 2011

Readers learn errors embedded in fictional stories and use them to answer later general knowledge questions (Marsh, Meade, & Roediger, 2003). Suggestibility is robust and occurs even when story errors contradict well-known facts. The current study evaluated whether suggestibility is linked to participants' inability to judge story content as correct versus incorrect. Specifically, participants read stories containing correct and misleading information about the world; some information was familiar (making error discovery possible), while some was more obscure. To improve participants' monitoring ability, we highlighted (in red font) a subset of story phrases requiring evaluation; readers no longer needed to find factual information. Rather, they simply needed to evaluate its correctness. Readers were more likely to answer questions with story errors if they were highlighted in red font, even if they contradicted well-known facts. Although highlighting to-be-evaluated information freed cognitive resources for monitoring, an ironic effect occurred: Drawing attention to specific errors increased rather than decreased later suggestibility. Failure to monitor for errors, not failure to identify the information requiring evaluation, leads to suggestibility.

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Published In

Memory (Hove, England)

DOI

EISSN

1464-0686

ISSN

0965-8211

Publication Date

February 2011

Volume

19

Issue

2

Start / End Page

184 / 191

Related Subject Headings

  • Suggestion
  • Recognition, Psychology
  • Reading
  • Learning
  • Knowledge
  • Humans
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Discrimination Learning
  • Deception
  • Concept Formation
 

Citation

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Eslick, A. N., Fazio, L. K., & Marsh, E. J. (2011). Ironic effects of drawing attention to story errors. Memory (Hove, England), 19(2), 184–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2010.543908
Eslick, Andrea N., Lisa K. Fazio, and Elizabeth J. Marsh. “Ironic effects of drawing attention to story errors.Memory (Hove, England) 19, no. 2 (February 2011): 184–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2010.543908.
Eslick AN, Fazio LK, Marsh EJ. Ironic effects of drawing attention to story errors. Memory (Hove, England). 2011 Feb;19(2):184–91.
Eslick, Andrea N., et al. “Ironic effects of drawing attention to story errors.Memory (Hove, England), vol. 19, no. 2, Feb. 2011, pp. 184–91. Epmc, doi:10.1080/09658211.2010.543908.
Eslick AN, Fazio LK, Marsh EJ. Ironic effects of drawing attention to story errors. Memory (Hove, England). 2011 Feb;19(2):184–191.

Published In

Memory (Hove, England)

DOI

EISSN

1464-0686

ISSN

0965-8211

Publication Date

February 2011

Volume

19

Issue

2

Start / End Page

184 / 191

Related Subject Headings

  • Suggestion
  • Recognition, Psychology
  • Reading
  • Learning
  • Knowledge
  • Humans
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Discrimination Learning
  • Deception
  • Concept Formation