A referential theory of the repetition-induced truth effect

Abstract

People are more likely to judge repeated statements as true compared to new statements, a phenomenon known as the illusory truth effect. The currently dominant explanation is an increase in processing fluency caused by prior presentation. We present a new theory to explain this effect. We assume that people judge truth based on coherent references for statements in memory. Due to prior presentation, repeated statements have more coherently linked references; thus, a repetition-induced truth effect follows. Five experiments test this theory. Experiment 1–3 show that both the amount and the coherence of references for a repeated statement influence judged truth. Experiment 4 shows that people also judge new statements more likely “true” when they share references with previously presented statements. Experiment 5 realizes theoretically predicted conditions under which repetition should not influence judged truth. Based on these data, we discuss how the theory relates to other explanations of repetition-induced truth and how it may integrate other truth-related phenomena and belief biases.