Electrophysiological correlates of the continued influence effect of misinformation: an exploratory study
Christopher R. Brydges, Andrew Gordon, Ullrich K. H. Ecker
Abstract
Misinformation often affects inferential reasoning even after it has been retracted, known as the continued influence effect (CIE). Previous behavioural research into the effect’s underlying mechanisms has focussed on the role of long-term memory processes at the time misinformation is retrieved during inferential reasoning. We present the first investigation into the CIE using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants completed a continued-influence task whilst electroencephalographic data were recorded. Analysis was guided by previous ERP research investigating post-event misinformation effects. ERPs elicited for retracted misinformation were more negative at a frontal-midline region of interest (300–500 ms) and more positive at a left-parietal region (450–600 ms) compared to correctly-accepted true information, though no differences were observed between rejected and accepted misinformation. This suggests that post-retraction reliance on misinformation may be driven by particularly strong recollection of the misinformation, ostensibly following poor integration of the retraction into the initial, partially invalid mental model.