ABSTRACT
People often face the challenge of disregarding misinformation that they read earlier. For example, someone may read a newspaper account that attributes a family’s death to food they had eaten at a Chinese restaurant. Along with the reported facts of the case, one may also store a number of inferences in memory, such as a reminder to avoid this establishment in the future. However, further investigation may reveal that the newspaper’s initial speculations were wrong, and the restaurant’s food was not responsible for the deaths. In this case, it would be important to disregard the initial misinformation in order to determine what really caused the deaths and who else might be at risk, and to avoid making judgments that have unfair consequences for the innocent restaurant owners. This chapter explores a number of factors that may influence how successful people are in disregarding information presented in text.
