Dr. Chris Wahlheim, Associate Professor of Psychology, has received a new grant from the National Science Foundation’s Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace program for his project, “When and from Whom Reminder-based Corrections of Everyday Misinformation Improve Memory and Belief Accuracy.” UNCG colleagues Dr. Andrew Engelhardt (Political Science) and Dr. Robert Wiley (Psychology) are co-investigators. The three-year project, funded at $450,000, will examine whether and how people remember corrections to misinformation. The project builds on Wahlheim’s prior research on memory and misinformation.
Learn more about Dr. Wahlheim’s work.
The project abstract:
Misinformation shared via news and social media platforms can lead to inaccurate memory and beliefs. These outcomes may have dire societal consequences, such as when people decide against COVID vaccinations because of inaccurate beliefs about vaccine safety. The proposed project will examine when and for whom a recently established reminder-based correction procedure can improve memory and belief accuracy for misinformation headlines from various internet news sources. Specifically, this project will examine the efficacy of the reminding procedure across time delays, when information appears in visual or auditory modalities, and when personal political views are consistent or inconsistent with news headlines. This work may inform efforts to counteract misinformation from real-world news and social media sources.
