An official website of the United States government
Recent years have seen a surge in research on why people fall for misinformation and what can be done about it. Drawing on a framework that conceptualizes truth judgments of true and false information as a signal-detection problem, the current article identifies three inaccurate assumptions in the public and scientific discourse about misinformation: (1) People are bad at discerning true from false information, (2) partisan bias is not a driving force in judgments of misinformation, and (3) gullibility to false information is the main factor underlying inaccurate beliefs. Counter to these assumptions, we argue that (1) people are quite good at discerning true from false information, (2) partisan bias in responses to true and false information is pervasive and strong, and (3) skepticism against belief-incongruent true information is much more pronounced than gullibility to belief-congruent false information. These conclusions have significant implications for person-centered misinformation interventions to tackle inaccurate beliefs.
more »
« less
Reciprocal spreading and debunking processes of online misinformation: A new rumor spreading–debunking model with a case study
- Award ID(s):
- 1762807
- PAR ID:
- 10281363
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications
- Volume:
- 565
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 0378-4371
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 125572
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has utilized the term food desert to highlight regions within low-income communities located far from fresh and healthy sources of food such as supermarkets and farmers markets. Most research on food deserts has revolved around urban areas, which bring about other considerations such as sidewalks, pedestrian access, rideshares, and public transportation, typically not viable options in rural regions. Rural food insecurity is also a problem in North Carolina. Utilizing data provided by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Access Atlas, this paper explored if and to what extent rural food insecurity exists, with findings showing 1) a higher percentage of people living in rural areas live in food insecurity compared to non-rural areas 2) counties in the eastern part of the state are more prone to food insecurity and 3) racial, ethnic minorities, as well as the young (age under 17), are more subjected to food insecurity compared to the majority and older cohorts. This research highlights the need for a rigorous and comprehensive understanding of rural food security that transcends the economic, cultural, and sociological reasons of differential food access with long-term health outcomes that have multi-generational consequences.more » « less
-
In nature, high-speed rain drops often impact and spread on curved surfaces, e.g., leaves and animal bodies. Although a drop's impact on a surface is a traditional topic for industrial applications, drop-impact dynamics on curved surfaces are less known. In the present study, we examine the time-dependent spreading dynamics of a drop onto a curved hydrophobic surface. We also observed that a drop on a curved surface spreads farther than one on a flat surface. To further understand the spreading dynamics, a new analytical model is developed based on volume conservation and temporal energy balance. This model converges to previous models at the early stage and the final stage of droplet impact. We compared the new model with measured spreading lengths on various curved surfaces and impact speeds, which resulted in good agreement.more » « less
-
A thin liquid droplet spreads on a soft viscoelastic substrate with arbitrary rheology. Lubrication theory is applied to the governing field equations in the liquid and solid domains, which are coupled through the free boundary at the solid–liquid interface, to derive a set of reduced equations that describe the spreading dynamics. Fourier transform techniques and the finite difference method are used to construct a solution for the dynamic liquid–gas and solid–liquid interface shapes, as well as the macroscopic contact angle. Substrate properties affect the spreading dynamics through the contact angle and internal droplet flow fields, and these mechanisms are revealed. Increased substrate softness increases the spreading rate, whereas increased viscoelasticity decreases the spreading rate. For the case of a purely elastic substrate, the spreading power-law exponent recovers Tanner's law in the rigid limit and increases with substrate softness.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2020.125572
