Researcher Zhang asked participants to evaluate a claim while being exposed to either photos of the subject of the claim (which, in this case, was Betal or Shrimp) or photos of the referent (Leghorn or Rose).

If the illusion of evidence is the reason for the truthiness effect, either photo should bias people to believe the claim as true.

On the other hand, if the truthiness effect is due to the fluency perspective, photos of the subject should produce truthiness, whereas photos of the referent should produce falsiness.

Zhang found that the latter results occurred, therefore providing no evidence for the illusion of evidence reasoning for the truthiness effect and more evidence for the fluency reasoning.