Adding a photo raises the judged truth of any accompanying claim

Evidence

Despite the fact that these are identical statements, University of Southern California psychology professor Norbert Schwarz – who has pioneered some of the early research on ‘truthiness’ – repeatedly found that the sheer visibility of a claim can actually increase (or decrease) its fluency, and thereby the extent to which it is experienced as familiar and judged to be true. Eryn Newman, a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the Australian National University has also consistently found evidence of this. In one experiment, people were shown names of unfamiliar celebrities with the claim that either ‘this famous person is dead’ or ‘this famous person is alive’. Adding a photo to the name, compared to just a name on its own, led people to be more likely to judge the claim as true, regardless of whether the celebrity was presumed dead or alive. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 85

Despite the fact that these are identical statements, University of Southern California psychology professor Norbert Schwarz – who has pioneered some of the early research on ‘truthiness’ – repeatedly found that the sheer visibility of a claim can actually increase (or decrease) its fluency, and thereby the extent to which it is experienced as familiar and judged to be true. Eryn Newman, a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the Australian National University has also consistently found evidence of this. In one experiment, people were shown names of unfamiliar celebrities with the claim that either ‘this famous person is dead’ or ‘this famous person is alive’. Adding a photo to the name, compared to just a name on its own, led people to be more likely to judge the claim as true, regardless of whether the celebrity was presumed dead or alive. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 85

Categorization

• CANDY: A photo added to a bare name flips truth judgments even with no added evidence — a fun, tweetable counterintuitive finding.
• SHARE: Worth sending to anyone who works on interface design, visual journalism, or platform credibility.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 85
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Images make factual claims more fluently processable and believable — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 105; Photographs function as proof of history even when fabricated — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1975; Photographs claim documentary truth but always embed their makers’ assumptions — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 1049 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Images make factual claims more fluently processable and believable #corroborates (0.95) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 105
• Photographs function as proof of history even when fabricated #expands (0.80) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1975
• Truth-seeking assumptions leave people unprepared for deliberate lying #expands (0.75) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 3144
• Photographs claim documentary truth but always embed their makers’ assumptions #qualifies (0.72) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 1049