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thinking
You make judgements based on how quickly you think.
The feeling of ease, or processing fluency, acts as a heuristic for validity.
When information is presented in a way that is easier to process—like high-contrast fonts or clear audio—it is rated as more accurate. The brain mistakes the lack of cognitive strain for evidence of truth or familiarity. You are often fooled by the clarity of the delivery.
If it is easy to read, you tend to agree.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Reber and Schwarz, 1999
- What the check found
- The 1999 paper 'Effects of Perceptual Fluency on Judgments of Truth' by Reber and Schwarz is the seminal work confirming this psychological heuristic.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.