Exploring the Electrophysiological Correlates of the Continued Influence Effect of Misinformation

Misinformation often affects inferences and judgments even after it has been retracted. This is known as the continued influence effect (CIE). Previous behavioural research into the effect’s underlying mechanisms has focussed on the role of long-term memory processes at the time misinformation is retrieved during inferential reasoning and judgments. We present the first investigation into the CIE using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants (N = 47) completed a continued-influence task whilst electroencephalographic data were recorded. Analysis was guided by previous ERP research investigating the effects of post-event misinformation. The ERP elicited at a left parieto-occipital region of interest was significantly more positive for incorrectly accepted retracted misinformation than correctly accepted true information at a late (800-900 ms) time window. This suggests that post-retraction reliance on misinformation is driven by particularly strong recollection of the misinformation, ostensibly following poor integration of the retraction into the initial, partially invalid mental model.