Fact Effect Download
Yanira Gauntner
Advertisers might take advantage of the illusory truth effect by repeating messages across different platforms and mediums. Even if a consumer initially doubts the validity of a claim, repeated exposure can make it feel more truthful. For instance, if a fitness app repeatedly claims it's "the most effective workout app," users may start to believe it simply because they've seen the claim so many times before.
To conserve our limited mental energy, we rely on countless shortcuts, known as heuristics, to make sense of the world. This strategy can often lead us to make errors in our judgment. Here are a few fundamental heuristics and biases that underlie the illusory truth effect.
In a classic experiment illustrating the mere exposure effect, Robert Zajonc took out ads in student newspapers at two Michigan universities over a period of a few weeks. Every day, the front page of each paper featured one or more Turkish words. Some words appeared more frequently than others, and the frequency of each word was also reversed between the two papers, so that the most-frequently appearing word in one paper would be the least-frequently appearing one in the other.
The illusory truth effect was first discussed in a 1977 paper by Lynn Hasher, David Goldstein, and Thomas Toppino. The three researchers had college students come into the lab on three separate occasions, each visit two weeks apart, to read a list of statements (both true and false) and rate how accurate they believed each of them was. Over the three sessions, participants rated both true and false statements as progressively more accurate.13
Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (19 U.S.C. 1862) authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to conduct comprehensive investigations to determine the effects of imports of any article on the national security of the United States. Section 232 investigations include consideration of:
Dioxins are mainly by-products of industrial processes but can also result from natural processes, such as volcanic eruptions and forest fires. They are unwanted by-products of many manufacturing processes including smelting, chlorine bleaching of paper pulp and the manufacture of some herbicides and pesticides. Uncontrolled waste incinerators (solid waste and hospital waste) are often the worst culprits of environmental release due to incomplete burning. Technology is available that allows for controlled waste incineration with low dioxin emissions.
The developing fetus is most sensitive to dioxin exposure. Newborns, with rapidly developing organ systems, may also be more vulnerable to certain effects. Some people or groups of people may be exposed to higher levels of dioxins because of their diet (such as high consumers of fish in certain parts of the world) or their occupation (such as workers in the pulp and paper industry, in incineration plants, and at hazardous waste sites).
Food and feed contamination monitoring systems must be in place to ensure that tolerance levels are not exceeded. It is the responsibility of feed and food producers to assure safe raw materials and processes during production, and it is the role of national governments to monitor the safety of food supply and to take action to protect public health. When contamination is suspected, countries should have contingency plans to identify, detain and dispose of contaminated feed and food. The affected population should be examined for exposure (for example, measuring the contaminants in blood or human milk) and effects (for example, clinical surveillance to detect signs of ill health).
Temperature and precipitation changes enhance the spread of vector-borne diseases. Without preventive actions, deaths from such diseases, currently over 700 000 annually, may rise. Climate change induces both immediate mental health issues, like anxiety and post-traumatic stress, and long-term disorders due to factors like displacement and disrupted social cohesion.
In the short- to medium-term, the health impacts of climate change will be determined mainly by the vulnerability of populations, their resilience to the current rate of climate change and the extent and pace of adaptation. In the longer-term, the effects will increasingly depend on the extent to which transformational action is taken now to reduce emissions and avoid the breaching of dangerous temperature thresholds and potential irreversible tipping points.
Evidence and Monitoring: WHO, with its network of global experts, contributes global evidence summaries, provides assistance to nations in their assessments, and monitors progress. The emphasis is on deploying effective policies and enhancing access to knowledge and data.
In 1955, Henry K. Beecher published the classic work entitled "The Powerful Placebo." Since that time, 40 years ago, the placebo effect has been considered a scientific fact. Beecher was the first scientist to quantify the placebo effect. He claimed that in 15 trials with different diseases, 35% of 1082 patients were satisfactorily relieved by a placebo alone. This publication is still the most frequently cited placebo reference. Recently Beecher's article was reanalyzed with surprising results: In contrast to his claim, no evidence was found of any placebo effect in any of the studies cited by him. There were many other factors that could account for the reported improvements in patients in these trials, but most likely there was no placebo effect whatsoever. False impressions of placebo effects can be produced in various ways. Spontaneous improvement, fluctuation of symptoms, regression to the mean, additional treatment, conditional switching of placebo treatment, scaling bias, irrelevant response variables, answers of politeness, experimental subordination, conditioned answers, neurotic or psychotic misjudgment, psychosomatic phenomena, misquotation, etc. These factors are still prevalent in modern placebo literature. The placebo topic seems to invite sloppy methodological thinking. Therefore awareness of Beecher's mistakes and misinterpretations is essential for an appropriate interpretation of current placebo literature.
The new law takes effect for health plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2022 and it applies to nearly all private health plans offered by employers (including grandfathered group health plans and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program), as well as non-group health insurance policies offered through and outside of the marketplace. The new law contains other related provisions, including a requirement for health plans to keep network provider directories up to date. This brief summarizes key provisions of the No Surprises Act and issues that could arise during implementation.
Recent findings: One of the main challenges of treating solid tumors with ADCs is the heterogeneous expression of the target antigen (Ag), which however may be overcome by the so-called bystander killing effect. This unique, but still debated, feature of certain ADCs is represented by the unintentional payload diffusion from Ag-positive tumor cells to adjacent Ag-negative tumor cells. Some pharmacological characteristics, such as a hydrophobic payload or a cleavable linker, seem to play a major role in this effect. Abundant preclinical evidence of the bystander effect has emerged, and the clinical activity of ADCs in tumors with a heterogeneous Ag expression suggests the relevance of this feature. Additional studies are required to investigate if the bystander effect is necessary for achieving a solid activity with ADCs.
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