British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant awarded to Dr Maryanne Brassil

We are delighted to share that TRUE project postdoctoral researcher Dr Maryanne Brassil has been awarded a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant. The grant, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, will support a research project titled Persistence Beyond Belief: Can Irrelevant and Implausible Misinformation Distort Our Memories?

The project will investigate whether debunked misinformation can distort perceptual details in memory, and whether those distortions shape later judgments, even when the misinformation is irrelevant or implausible.

Maryanne is collaborating with two fellow postdoctoral researchers on this project: Dr Aglaé Navarre at University College Dublin and Dr Afroditi Asimakopoulou at University of Limerick.

Read the project abstract here:

One of the most troubling aspects of misinformation is its persistence. False information can continue to impact decision-making even after it has been debunked, which is known as the 'Continued Influence Effect'. In another phenomenon, the 'Anchoring Effect', we know that arbitrary numerical information can distort perceptual details in memory and subsequent judgments. A key similarity between these effects is that both involve reasoning being shaped by information that should be inconsequential. This project will investigate whether theoretical understandings from Anchoring Effect literature translate to the Continued Influence Effect; examining whether refuted misinformation functions similarly to an anchor in skewing recollections of an event. This project will test: i) whether debunked misinformation distorts perceptual details in memory; ii) whether these memory distortions subsequently influence judgments about the event; and iii) whether these effects persist even when the misinformation is irrelevant to the event or is implausible from the outset.