MEMORY CONTROL PROCESSES IN REAL-WORLD MISINFORMATION JUDGMENTS

Accurate evaluation of misinformation requires more than general knowledge or reasoning ability. The role of memory control processes, although promising, remains underexplored in the related literature. Across two online studies, we investigated how source memory processes contribute to the accuracy and speed of real-world news judgments. In the first study (N = 230), participants evaluated true, fake, and novel news headlines sourced from a fact-checking website and completed cognitive and memory tasks, including a source memory paradigm with recognition and retrieval phases. Accuracy and response speed were examined across news categories using backward elimination regressions. Source memory recognition accuracy predicted accuracy for true news items, while familiarity and cognitive ability contributed to accuracy for fake and novel news. Response speed across all news categories was strongly predicted by source memory retrieval reaction time, suggesting that memory access and news evaluation rely on shared temporal constraints. In a follow-up study conducted four years later (N = 100), the same cohort was invited to participate again, and a reality monitoring task was introduced to refine the role of memory control processes. Reality monitoring accuracy predicted fake news detection beyond cognitive and individual difference factors, while reality monitoring reaction time was the strongest predictor of news evaluation speed across all categories. Together, these findings suggest that misinformation susceptibility may be influenced by memory control processes: source monitoring speed constrains the speed of veracity judgments, and accuracy in memory control processes, particularly recognition and reality monitoring, supports accurate discrimination between true and false information.