The continued influence effect and situation models: Evidence for the model-updating account

Information often continues to influence judgments even after retraction (Continued Influence Effect, CIE). According to the model-updating account, the CIE occurs because humans base their judgments on situation models that are not completely updated and, thus, continue to contain the original information despite retraction. These situation models should determine the CIE. However, direct evidence for this account is lacking. The aim of the current research was to test the model-updating account by assessing participants' situation models and testing whether these models mediated effects of the credibility of the original informant and of the retractor on the CIE. Participants (N = 435) read a fictitious news report in which original information and retraction were presented by sources of either high or low credibility. Source credibility was disclosed or not disclosed before processing of the original information and retraction. Thus, source credibility could or could not affect situation-model construction, respectively. Supporting the model-updating account, structural equation modeling showed that, when source credibility was disclosed before information processing, the situation model updated after retraction fully mediated the effect of informant credibility and partially mediated the effect of retractor credibility on the CIE. Higher source credibility led to stronger effects of original information and retraction on judgments than lower source credibility. When source credibility was not disclosed before information processing, it did not affect the CIE. These results strongly support the model-updating account and are inconsistent with purely retrieval-based CIE accounts. Some unexpected effects, however, could not be explained by the model-updating account alone.