Stephen Colbert Nailed It: ‘Truthiness’ Represents Human Preference to Follow Our Intuition

‘Truthiness,’ says our nation's favorite 'pundit' Stephen Colbert, represents the human preference to follow our intuition despite the presence of facts or evidence. The more ambiguous an answer to a question, for example, the more likely an individual will believe it is truthful.

At least that is what psychologists Rick Dale of the University of Memphis, Michael Spivey of Cornell University and the late Chris McKinstry found in a survey of college students to questions that ranged in levels of vagueness and tracked their corresponding arm movements to clicking ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on a computer screen.

The findings, which appear in the January 2008 issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggest that the mind and body do in fact work together and the resulting collaboration may prompt us to lean toward ‘truthiness.’

The results of participants’ cursor movements suggested that the human brain thinks and acts at the same time, in contrast to what many researchers previously assumed: That the decision-making process was completed by the brain's cognitive subsystem, or thought center, before it was shared with other parts of the brain.

“These dynamic data showed that participant arm movements had lower velocity and curved more toward the alternative response box during ‘no’ responses than during ‘yes’ responses ”suggesting that we experience a general bias toward assuming statements are true,” the authors explained.

Posted by Casey Kazan.

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Links:


http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2008/dale.cfm
http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/stephen_colberts_truthiness_scientifically_validated?full=1

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