When Feeds Become “Facts”: Memory and Use of Misinformation from Social Media

This dissertation investigates how features of social media influence memory and use of misinformation. Across four experiments, participants read short posts based on an established general knowledge norm paradigm that varied in factual framing (accurate, neutral, misleading), item familiarity, and either presentation format (Study 1: scrolling vs. page-based) or content relatedness (Study 2: single vs multi-topic). Outcomes were measured either using a general knowledge test or a cued recall task to distinguish acquisition of misinformation from its later retrieval. Misleading framing consistently increased misinformation use, and high familiarity improved gist recall. Yet presentation and relatedness effects reversed original predictions: coherent contexts (page-based and single topic) enhanced memory for both accurate and inaccurate details, while fragmented contexts (scrolling and multi-topic) reduced recall overall. These results reveal a coherence trade-off: conditions that promote integration and fluency strengthen all traces, whereas less coherent conditions weaken encoding but also limit misinformation uptake.

Author dc:creator

• Alyssa Blair (23291578)

• Psychology
• Cognitive

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.25417/uic.31451347.v1

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:figshare.com:article/31451347