A lie once needed a convincing storyteller. Now it only needs a distribution budget. Say something false loudly enough, frequently enough and through enough familiar faces, and the mind may begin to lower its guard. Not because the claim has improved. Because it has returned. Psychologists call this the illusory-truth effect: repeated statements tend to feel more truthful than unfamiliar ones. Familiarity is processed more easily, and the brain can mistake that ease for accuracy. The lie has not acquired evidence. It has merely become comfortable furniture. This weakness is not reserved for fools. In a 2015 study, Lisa Fazio and colleagues found that repetition could increase belief even when participants possessed knowledge that contradicted the repeated claim. Knowing better helps, but the mind does not consult its library every time a familiar sentence walks through the door. Another study by Gordon Pennycook, Tyrone Cannon and David Rand found that even one earlier exposure to a...
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