Processing Inaccurate Information Theoretical and Applied Perspectives from Cognitive Science and the Educational Sciences

Interdisciplinary approaches to identifying, understanding, and remediating people's reliance on inaccurate information that they should know to be wrong.

Our lives revolve around the acquisition of information. Sometimes the information we acquire—from other people, from books, or from the media—is wrong. Studies show that people rely on such misinformation, sometimes even when they are aware that the information is inaccurate or invalid. And yet investigations of learning and knowledge acquisition largely ignore encounters with this sort of problematic material. This volume fills the gap, offering theoretical and empirical perspectives on the processing of misinformation and its consequences.

The contributors, from cognitive science and education science, provide analyses that represent a variety of methodologies, theoretical orientations, and fields of expertise. The chapters describe the behavioral consequences of relying on misinformation and outline possible remediations; discuss the cognitive activities that underlie encounters with inaccuracies, investigating why reliance occurs so readily; present theoretical and philosophical considerations of the nature of inaccuracies; and offer formal, empirically driven frameworks that detail when and how inaccuracies will lead to comprehension difficulties.

Contributors
Peter Afflerbach, Patricia A. Alexander, Jessica J. Andrews, Peter Baggetta, Jason L. G. Braasch, Ivar Bråten, M. Anne Britt, Rainer Bromme, Luke A. Buckland, Clark A. Chinn, Byeong-Young Cho, Sidney K. D'Mello, Andrea A. diSessa, Ullrich K. H. Ecker, Arthur C. Graesser, Douglas J. Hacker, Brenda Hannon, Xiangen Hu, Maj-Britt Isberner, Koto Ishiwa, Matthew E. Jacovina, Panayiota Kendeou, Jong-Yun Kim, Stephan Lewandowsky, Elizabeth J. Marsh, Ruth Mayo, Keith K. Millis, Edward J. O'Brien, Herre van Oostendorp, José Otero, David N. Rapp, Tobias Richter, Ronald W. Rinehart, Yaacov Schul, Colleen M. Seifert, Marc Stadtler, Brent Steffens, Helge I. Strømsø, Briony Swire, Sharda Umanath

David N. Rapp is Associate Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Northwestern University.

Jason L. G. Braasch is Assistant Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Memphis.

Acknowledgments vii
Contributors ix
1 Accurate and Inaccurate Knowledge Acquisition 1
David N. Rapp and Jason L. G. Braasch

I Detecting and Dealing with Inaccuracies 11

2 Correcting Misinformation--A Challenge for Education and Cognitive Science 13
Ullrich K. H. Ecker, Briony Swire, and Stephan Lewandowsky 

3 The Continued Influence Effect: The Persistence of Misinformation in Memory and Reasoning Following Correction 39
Colleen M. Seifert

4 Failures to Detect Textual Problems during Reading 73
Douglas J. Hacker

5 Research on Semantic Illusions Tells Us That There Are Multiple Sources of Misinformation 93
Brenda Hannon

6 Sensitivity to Inaccurate Argumentation in Health News Articles: Potential Contributions of Readers' Topic and Epistemic Beliefs 117
Jason L. G. Braasch, Ivar Braten, M. Anne Britt, Brent Steffens, and Helge I. Stromso

7 Conversational Agents Can Help Humans Identify Flaws in the Science Reported in Digital Media 139

II Mechanisms of Inaccurate Knowledge Acquisition 159

8 Knowledge Neglect: Failures to Notice Contradictions with Stored Knowledge
Elizabeth J. Marsh and Sharda Umanath 161

9 Mechanisms of Problematic Knowledge Acquisition 181
David N. Rapp, Matthew E. Jacovina, and Jessica J. Andrews 

10 Discounting Information: When False Information Is Preserved and When It Is Not 203
Yaacov Schul and Ruth Mayo

11 The Ambivalent Effect of Focus on Updating Mental Representations 223
Herre van Oostendorp

12 Comprehension and Validation: Separable Stages of Information Processing? A Case for Episetemic Monitoring in Language Comprehension 245

III Epistemological Groundings 277

13 An Epistemological Perspective on Misinformation 279
Andrea A. diSessa

14 Percept-Concept Coupling and Human Error 297
Patricia A. Alexander and Peter Baggetta

15 Cognitive Processing of Conscious Ignorance 329
Jose Otero and Koto Ishiwa

IV Emerging Models and Frameworks 351

16 The Knowledge Revision Components (KReC) Framework: Processes and Mechanisms 353
Panayiota Kendeou and Edward J. O'Brien

17 The Content-Source Integration Model: A Taxonomic Description of How Readers Comprehend Conflicting Scientific Information 397
Marc Stadtler and Rainer Bromme

18 Inaccuracy and Reading in Multiple Text and Internet/Hypertext Environments 403
Peter Afflerbach, Byeong-Young Cho, and Jong-Yun Kim

19 Epistemic Cognition and Evaluating Information: Applying the AIR Model of Epistemic Cognition 425
Clark A. Chinn, Ronald W. Rinehart, and Luke A. Buckland

Index 455