The report reads:
Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true. With time, this misremembering gets worse. A false statement from a noncredible source that is at first not believed can gain credibility during the months it takes to reprocess memories from short-term hippocampal storage to longer-term cortical storage. As the source is forgotten, the message and its implications gain strength.
Of course, in the Internet era, rumors can be spread with unprecedented rapidity. Now more than ever, we witness the truth of Mark Twain's observation, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
" This truism is now supported by scientific evidence, as the Times' authors report:
Making matters even worse, according to this report, "In one study, a group of Stanford students was exposed repeatedly to an unsubstantiated claim taken from a Web site that Coca-Cola is an effective paint thinner. Students who read the statement five times were nearly one-third more likely than those who read it only twice to attribute it to Consumer Reports (rather than The National Enquirer, their other choice), giving it a gloss of credibility.
We tend to remember news that accords with our worldview, and discount statements that contradict it." In other words, it's often not enough for one to simply be exposed to the "truth," because the brain will actually fight to defend its attachment to cherished falsehoods.
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