Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

This study investigated the impact of refutative elements in others’ comments on accepting fallacious claims about food nutrition. Four types of comments were used, two of which included refutative elements (challenging evidence and deductive process). A multiple regression analysis was conducted with 506 participants’ agreement with the fallacious claim as the dependent variable and the type of comment and their agreement before exposure to the comments as independent variables. The study also considered individual differences such as media literacy, information literacy, cognitive reflection, and interest in and familiarity with the topic. The results showed that presenting comments that challenged the deductive process significantly decreased agreement when participants had higher agreement before exposure. Further analysis of participants with high initial agreement revealed significant effects of all three comment types. A supplemental survey (n=182) suggested that the perceived negativity and usefulness of the comments influenced the participants' agreement.