Lena Nadarevic, University of Mannheim, visits this week to speak in the SWE Colloquium. Below, she outlines what she will be covering.

On the stability and malleability of the truth effect

Studies on the repetition-based truth effect suggest that people provide higher truth judgments to statements they have encountered before than to novel statements. Since its first empirical demonstration, the truth effect has been replicated many times and seems to be a remarkably stable phenomenon. For instance, the effect has been found with various statement types and does not depend on the statements’ presentation format (visual versus auditory). In my presentation, however, I will not only talk about the stability of the truth effect, but also about its malleability. More precisely, I will present truth effect studies that have identified several relevant moderator variables. Moreover, I will talk about the theoretical implications of the reported findings.