Decision skill

Information verification

Check where information came from, whether sources are independent and whether a correction has really replaced the old explanation.

Learning outcome: You can verify important claims without treating repetition as independent confirmation.

When it matters

Notice the situation before naming the bias.

A claim feels familiar because it has appeared repeatedly.
Several summaries may all depend on the same original source.
A correction was issued but the old story still shapes later reasoning.
Generated answers repeat a claim without showing where it came from.

Practice the skill

Use a better reasoning move.

Trace the claim to the earliest reliable or primary source you can inspect.
Count independent sources, not repetitions.
After a correction, restate the supported replacement explanation explicitly.
Mark claims as verified, unverified or disputed instead of flattening them into one confidence level.

Decision contexts

Apply the skill to real kinds of decisions.

Decision context

Checking claims & misinformation

Use these evidence-reviewed lenses when deciding whether a repeated claim is trustworthy, checking a correction, or testing an explanation against plausible alternatives.

Practice this context →

Decision context

AI-assisted decisions

Use these evidence-reviewed lenses when a chatbot, model, recommendation system, or automated decision aid is influencing what you believe or do.

Practice this context →

Evidence-reviewed lenses

Patterns worth checking, not labels for people.

Several patterns can fit the same situation. Use these lenses to ask better questions, then inspect the evidence behind each concept.

Repeated information is, on average, judged as more truthful than comparable new information. The size of the effect varies with the material and procedure, and repetition does not make every claim believable or erase all prior knowledge.

robust Read evidence review

Continued Influence Effect

The continued influence effect describes a specific pattern: false or outdated information can keep affecting later reasoning even after a clear correction. It does not mean the correction had no effect, that the person rejected the correction, or that belief in the false claim became stronger. Corrections often reduce misinformation reliance without removing it completely. That distinction matters because continued influence is much broader than the rarer backfire outcome.

well-established persistence after correction; corrections usually still help Read evidence review

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is an umbrella label for several ways existing beliefs or hypotheses can influence information search and interpretation. It should not be reduced to one behaviour such as reading only agreeable news, and a preference for confirming tests is not irrational in every task or environment.

well established, broad construct Read evidence review

Availability Heuristic

Availability is a judgment heuristic: people can use how easily examples or scenarios come to mind when estimating frequency or probability. That shortcut is not automatically an error because memorable or accessible examples can correlate with real frequency. Bias appears when accessibility is driven by factors that are not diagnostic of the quantity being judged.

established heuristic; bias is context-dependent Read evidence review

Practice this skill

Apply the capability across real decisions.

Starter · Checking a repeated claimTen articles repeat one report

A claim appears in ten articles. Following the links shows that nine articles cite the tenth, which cites one small report.

Skill: Information verificationOpen scenario →

Intermediate · Checking a repeated claimThe correction removes the story but leaves a gap

A report corrects a false explanation for an event but gives no supported alternative. Later discussions still use the old explanation because it is the only coherent story people remember.