The neurocognition of social-emotional (mis)information

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Rasha Abdel Rahman; Dr. Julia Baum
• Subject Area: Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 519859024

Misinformation and “fake news”, that is, information that is false or of questionable veracity, is increasingly prevalent and affects opinions and behaviours (Lazer et al., 2018; Lewandowsky et al., 2012). While the online spread and the detection of misinformation are comparatively well-investigated, little is known about the processes that determine its fate within the individual information processing system. The aim of this project is to describe how potential misinformation is processed within the neurocognitive system and how this is modulated by interventions to protect ourselves against its detrimental effects using high temporally resolving electrophysiological brain responses. A key focus is how emotional contents of misinformation shape this processing, as we know little about the role of emotion even though misinformation is frequently emotionally loaded. Potential misinformation is conceptualized here as information that is either verbally or via the source marked as untrustworthy. We focus on social-emotional information about persons that has been shown to affect various aspects of face processing and person evaluation (e.g., Abdel Rahman, 2011; Kissler & Strehlow, 2017; Junghöfer et al., 2017; Schindler et al., 2021), and especially our emotional responses, our opinions and our social judgments (Baum et al., 2018; Baum and Abdel Rahman, 2020; 2021). Subproject 1 specifies the behavioural and neurocognitive mechanisms of social misinformation by investigating the effects of misinformation about well-known persons, as well as effects in implicit processes reflected in social perception and own non-verbal social-communicative behaviour. Subproject 2 describes the neurocognition of interventions as possible guards against misinformation by investigating strategies using emotion regulation and empathy, as well as satire and humour. Finally, subproject 3 identifies key individual differences in personality, cognitive ability and their interactions relevant for the processing of social misinformation on the basis of a mega-analysis of the integrated data of this project and related experiments. The results from the proposed project will contribute to the comprehensive understanding of our susceptibility to misinformation which is key to avoid its potentially detrimental effects.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants