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Science
Related: About this forumFake news grabs our attention, produces false memories and appeals to our emotions
November 17, 2019 8.13am EST
Rachel Anne Barr
PhD Student, Université Laval
Fake news is a relatively new term, yet its 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
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Fake news grabs our attention, produces false memories and appeals to our emotions (Original Post)
Judi Lynn
Nov 2019
OP
safeinOhio
(32,688 posts)1. Folks tend to buy
what they hunger for.
mitch96
(13,911 posts)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
(23,641 posts)3. i just want to mention
VIDEODROME ...
🤔
it just crossed my mind again
✌🏼