Main outcome that they looked at was discernment. Discernment is the difference in accuracy judgment of sharing intentions between the true and false headlines, calculated by taking the fraction of what the participants believed were true or would have shared of the false headlines subtracted from the fraction of what the participants believed were true or would have shared of the true headlines.

"For example, an individual who shared 9 out of 15 true headlines and 12 out of 15 false headlines would have a discernment level of −.2 (i.e., .6 – .8), whereas an individual who shared 9 out of 15 true headlines and 3 out of 15 false headlines would have a discernment level of .4 (i.e., .6 – .2)."

A higher discernment score means the participant was better at discerning between the true and false headlines.