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Myths & Facts. New research find that "even the sharpest consumers" have trouble telling the difference between myths and facts "because of a flaw in the way we remember what we read or are told," reports Deborah Franklin in The New York Times. This is hardly a news flash to anyone in the marketing business -- or surprising that this study was led by one Dr. Ian Skurnik, "a psychologist and assistant professor of marketing at the University of Toronto, who worked with colleagues from the University of Michigan to study the phenomenon."
The problem, says Dr. Skurnik, is that "in laying down a memory trace, the human brain seems to encode the memory of the claim separately from its context -- who said it, when and other particulars, including the important fact that the claim is not true." Says Dr. Skurnik: "Long after you've forgotten the context, the claim will still seem vaguely familiar." That, he says, is when "the illusion of truth" occurs. Dr. Skurnik isn't the only one who has documented the phenomenon: "Numerous studies over the last few decades have shown that unless people have some countervailing context or information to grab hold of, they tend to regard information that seems familiar as true."
Dr. Skurnik's study involved some 64 volunteers -- half of which "were college students" and the rest "healthy adults, ages 71 to 86." While the younger set did have more success separating myths from realities (and the problem wasn't that the older folks had trouble remembering anything) Ian says the "implications of the findings are not limited to older people." This issue is, of course, most concerning where medical information is concerned -- particularly because public health campaigns often use a "myths and facts" format to convey information on various health risks. Says Dr. Skurnik: "It's not enough to ensure that people get good information from credible sources ... You also have to make sure that they'll be able to recall whether it's true or false later on." His study is published in the March 2005 issue of The Journal of Consumer Research.
Tim Manners
editor
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©2005 reveries.com |
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