Fake news grabs our attention, produces false memories and appeals to our emotions

[Judi Lynn]

November 17, 2019 8.13am EST

Rachel Anne Barr
PhD Student, Université Laval

“Fake news” is a relatively new term, yet it’s now seen as one of the greatest threats to democracy and free debate. In the Netflix documentary The Great Hack — which chronicled the rise and fall of Cambridge Analytica — we saw how Facebook data was used to target potential voters with insidious right-wing propaganda packaged as if it were news.

But how does fake news work? Neuroscience can provide at least some insight.

Grabbing attention
The first job of fake news is to catch our attention, and for this reason, novelty is key. Psychologists Gordon Pennycook and David Rand suggested that one of the reasons hyperpartisan claims are so successful is that they tend to be outlandish.

In a world full of surprises, humans have developed an exquisite ability to rapidly detect and orient towards unexpected information or events. Novelty is an essential concept underlying the neural basis of behavior, and plays a role at nearly all stages of neural processing.

Sensory neuroscience has shown that only unexpected information can filter through to higher stages of processing. The sensory cortex may have therefore evolved to adapt to, to predict, and to quiet down the expected regularities of our experiences, focusing on events that are unpredictable or surprising. Neural responses gradually reduce each time we are exposed to the same information, as the brain learns that this stimulus has no reward associated with it.

More:
https://theconversation.com/fake-news-grabs-our-attention-produces-false-memories-and-appeals-to-our-emotions-124842

[safeinOhio]

1. Folks tend to buy

what they hunger for.

[mitch96]

2. I like this quote, still prevalent today

A lie travels half way around the world, while the truth is putting it's shoes on...
m

[dweller]

3. i just want to mention

VIDEODROME ...
🤔
it just crossed my mind again

✌🏼