Frequency and the conference of referential validity
Hasher, Goldstein and Toppino asked participants to judge whether plausible but obscure statements were true or false and to rate their confidence, across three sessions two weeks apart. Some statements recurred in every session and others appeared once. Confidence rose for the repeated statements, whether true or false, and stayed flat for the statements seen once. The authors concluded that how often a statement is encountered is a factor in whether it seems valid.
Hasher, Goldstein and Toppino asked participants to judge whether plausible but obscure statements were true or false and to rate their confidence, across three sessions two weeks apart. Some statements recurred in every session and others appeared once. Confidence rose for the repeated statements, whether true or false, and stayed flat for the statements seen once. The authors concluded that how often a statement is encountered is a factor in whether it seems valid.
Written from the abstract, secondary summary of the journal record, 2026-10-31.
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Hasher, L., Goldstein, D., & Toppino, T. (1977). Frequency and the conference of referential validity. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 16(1), 107-112. doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(77)80012-1 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0022-5371(77)80012-1