The influence of feedback on detection and recognition memory of fake news: an experimental study from the perspective of signal detection theory

Abstract

The objective of this research was to analyze the effect of immediate feedback on the detection and recognition memory of false and true news, using the Signal Detection Theory. For this, two experiments were carried out; in experiment one no feedback was presented; in experiment 2 immediate feedback was included. The experiments were divided into 2 phases: discrimination and news recognition memory. It included the participation of 93 young people, who judged the veracity or falsity of the news using a forced choice task, in 24 news with two types of attributes, physical and non-physical. The results indicated in experiment one, that the non-physical attributes alter the detection and memory recognition of the news, making the physical attribute of the font color irrelevant. In experiment 2, immediate feedback was found to improve detection, but not recognition, which is impaired by non-physical attributes as in experiment one. These findings show the need to present news readers with different sources of immediate verification to improve their detection, as well as the need to generate good information verification practices in the communication sector.