- Individuals were given a single passage about a burglary.
- Individuals were either exposed to the target concept (they saw an "unfamiliar blue car") or not exposed ("neighbor was a blue-collar worker"), which was then followed by a replacement ("car was red"), negated correction ("car was not blue"), or no correction ("car was a neighbor's").
- After they were finished reading the passage, individuals responded to a series of questions, which included a summary question, three yes/no comprehension questions, and three open-ended questions; these open-ended questions gave individuals the opportunity to address the target concept.

Experiment 1 of "Correcting the unknown: Negated corrections may increase belief in misinformation" Study

- The setup of Experiment 1 was replicated to a more generalizable level; this time, participants received 6 passages to read through, one of which was the burglary passage. The other 5 passages were new.
- After each passage, participants underwent an assessment modeled after the questions from Experiment 1.

Experiment 2 of "Correcting the unknown: Negated corrections may increase belief in misinformation" Study

- Increased belief in misinformation was not measured over long intervals, since it is possible that false beliefs may diminish over time, further research must replicate this study under longer intervals.
- The passages read by participants were all fictitious; further research is needed to determine if the same effect is produced when participants read factual information, especially information that may introduce political biases.

Limitations of "Correcting the unknown: Negated corrections may increase belief in misinformation" Study

When subjects are only exposed to misinformation through a direct negated statement (i.e. "not X") in the negation correction condition, do these negated corrections increase belief in misinformation?

Johns Hopkins University

Individuals that are exposed to negatively worded claims (i.e. "vaccines do not cause autism") are more susceptible to the familiarity backfire effect. This occurs as long as the subject of the claim is a known and easily processable concept.

Negation Effect

Autry, KS, Duarte, SE. Correcting the unknown: Negated corrections may increase belief in misinformation. Appl Cognit Psychol. 2021; 35: 960– 975. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3823

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