In a high-risk environment, such as during an epidemic, people are exposed to a large amount of information, both accurate and inaccurate. Following exposure, they typically discuss the information with each other in conversations. Here, we assessed the effects of such conversations on their beliefs. A sample of 126 M-Turk participants first rated the accuracy of a set of COVID-19 statements (pre-test). They were then paired and asked to discuss either any of these statements (low epistemic condition) or only the statements they thought were accurate (high epistemic condition). Finally, they rated the accuracy of the initial statements again (post-test). We did not find a difference of epistemic condition on belief change. However, we found that individuals were sensitive to their conversational partners and changed their beliefs according to their partners’ conveyed beliefs. This influence was strongest for initially moderately held beliefs.

Beliefs have long been posited to be a predictor of behavior. However, empirical investigations into the relationship between beliefs (e.g., “vaccines cause autism”) and behaviors (e.g., vaccinating one’s child), mostly correlational in nature, have provided conflicting findings. To explore the causal impact of beliefs on behaviors, participants first rated the accuracy of a set of statements (health-related in Study 1, politically-charged in Studies 2 and 3) and chose corresponding campaigns to donate available funds. They were then provided with relevant evidence in favor of the correct statements and against the incorrect statements. Finally, participants rated the accuracy of the initial set of statements again and were given a chance to change their donation choices. The results of all three studies show that belief change predicts behavioral change, finding of particular relevance for interventions aimed at promoting constructive behaviors such as recycling, donating to charity, or employing preventative health measures.

The mind is a prediction machine. In most situations in which it finds itself, it has expectations as to what mighthappen. But when people’s expectations are invalidated by experience, the memories that gave rise to these expectations aresuppressed. The present research explores the effect of these prediction errors on listener’s memories during social interaction.We reasoned that listening to a speaker recounting experiences similar to one’s own would trigger prediction errors on the part ofthe listener that would result in the suppression of his/her memories. Study 1 offers evidence for the effect of socially triggeredcontext based prediction errors on listener’s mnemonic representations. Study 2 replicates these findings and shows that thiseffect is sensitive to a perspective-taking manipulation. Taken together, these findings provide evidence for a yet unrecognizedphenomenon by which our conversations shape the memories that we come to hold.

Exposure to images constitutes a ubiquitous day-to-dayexperience for most individuals. From mass-media exposure,to engagement with social-networking sites, to educationalcontexts, we are bombarded with images. Here, we explore theeffect that emotional images have on belief endorsement. Toinvestigate this effect, we test whether statements accompaniedby emotionally arousing images become more or lessbelievable than the same statements when they areaccompanied by neutral images or by no images. We find thatemotional images increase statement believability (Experiment1, replicated in preregistered Experiment 2). We discuss theimplications of this finding in the context of interventionsaimed at reducing misinformation.

Recent work suggests that speakers’ lexical networks in theirnative and secondary languages are organized somewhatdifferently, with native languages showing greatersystematicity. We here test this claim in a new way, bymaking use of the “Retrieval-induced forgetting” effect(RIF). Specifically, practicing previously encodedinformation through rehearsal is expected to result in bettermemory for that information, regardless of which languagethe information is encoded. The RIF effect involves thesuppression of information that is associated with thepracticed information but is itself unpracticed. Since RIF isunderstood to rely on the association between the practicedand unpracticed memories, we predict it will be weaker whenapplied in a language with weaker or less systematicallyorganized lexical associations. Results confirm that while theexpected practice effect was evident in participants’ nativeand second languages, the RIF effect was only significant inparticipants’ native language. We discuss the relevance andimplications of this finding for second language speakers.

The mind is a prediction machine, using prior experiences and current information to constantly make predictions aboutthe future. This feature of the cognitive system has numerous consequences for long-term memory. Here, we are interestedin the effects these predictions have on memory when invalidated (i.e., prediction errors) during social interactions witheither similar or dissimilar social sources. We designed an experiment in which both similar and dissimilar social sources(speakers) recounted experiences similar with those of the listeners but with a different outcome than those of the listeners.We measured participants memory for both their own and the two social sources experiences. In two experiments, we foundthat context-based prediction errors triggered during social interactions dont affect the listeners memory for their ownexperiences but decrease the listeners memory for the similar speakers experiences compared to the dissimilar speakersexperiences. This finding has important implications for close relationships.