| dc.description.abstract | As information sharing via social media increases, individuals are increasingly exposed to misinformation that they may utilize when forming beliefs. Over five experiments (total N=819), we investigated whether people could ignore quantitative information when they judged for themselves that it had been fabricated. Participants recruited online viewed sets of values sampled from Gaussian distributions to estimate the underlying means. They attempted to ignore fabricated data, which were outlier values inserted into the value sequences. Results indicated participants were able to detect outliers, and that higher detection confidence was associated with greater estimate accuracy. However, even when participants were most confident that they detected fabricated data, their estimates were still biased in the direction of the outlier. The addition of visual warning cues and different task scenarios did not fully eliminate systematic over- and under-estimation. These findings suggest individuals may incorporate fabricated data they meant to ignore when forming beliefs. | |
