Social perceptions of misinformation sources and memory.

Research on the misinformation effect has shown that individuals' memories can be influenced by postevent misinformation. However, individuals do not passively receive such misinformation; instead, they may form perceptions about its sources. This study was the first to examine the relationship between individuals' social perceptions of misinformation sources and their susceptibility to postevent misinformation, considering different types of misinformation in three preregistered studies. Participants first learned a narrative paragraph in preparation for an interview. They then answered questions under one of three conditions: neutral (no misinformation), explicit misinformation, or pragmatic implication misinformation. Participants rated the interviewers who prepared the questions (Study 1 and Study 2) or asked the questions in a video (Study 3) on competence, sociability, morality, and overall perception. Memory accuracies during the direct interaction and subsequent cued recall were analyzed alongside these social perception ratings. Participants gave lower social perception ratings to sources presenting explicit misinformation compared with those in neutral and pragmatic misinformation conditions. However, social perception ratings were not associated with memory accuracies. Regardless of the type of misinformation, exposure to misinformation increased the likelihood of making corresponding misinformation errors.