Blair Braun

Biography

My program of research centers around understanding how people come to developing confidently held false memories and beliefs, and ways to correct misinformation. Specifically, I am interested in eyewitness suggestibility, fake news, and false memory for news events. My program of research has both theoretical and practical implications, contributing to combatting misinformation in the post-truth world (Lewandowsky, Ecker, & Cook, 2017).

In my primary line of research, I am interested in mechanisms that contribute to false memory development and reducing the deleterious effects of misinformation on eyewitness memory through corrections. Additionally, I am also interested in how complex questions affect eyewitness suggestibility. In particular, I have investigated how multifaceted questions – questions with both true and false propositions – after exposure to post-event misinformation impact witness’ accuracy.

In my second line of research, I am interested in understanding why people come to believe in fake news. Prior research has demonstrated that the mere presence of a photo accompanying a headline increases perceived accuracy of both true and false headlines (Smelter & Calvillo, 2020); however, it is less understood how social media impacts perceived accuracy. I am also interested in how repetition increases perceived belief of fake news headlines. Research has shown that prior exposure to a fake news headline increases perceived accuracy of the false headline (Pennycook et al., 2018). However, how multiple exposures to fake news headlines affects false beliefs is poorly understood.