Robustness Tests Replicate Corneille et al.’s (2020) Fake News by Repetition Effect

Abstract

Corneille et al. (2020) found that repetition increases judgments that statements have been used as fake news on social media. They also found that repetition increases truth judgments and decreases falsehood judgments (i.e., two instantiations of the truth-by-repetition effect). These results supported an ecological explanation of the truth-by-repetition effect better than two alternative accounts. However, the first author of the present article found unsuspected programming issues in Corneille et al.’s experiments. These programming issues introduced confounds that may have been responsible for the results. To estimate whether Corneille et al.’s main findings and claims hold when correcting these issues, the current team agreed on two high-powered preregistered replications of Corneille et al.’s experiments ('N'total = 540). The results replicate Corneille et al.’s findings, which are more consistent with an ecological account of repetition effects on judgment than the alternative accounts tested in the original publication.

Keywords

• ecological account
• fakeness-by-repetition
• processing fluency
• repetition
• truth-by-repetition
• truth effect