Claims are more likely to be judged true when presented with a related nonprobative photo (Newman et al., 2012). According to a processing fluency account, related photos facilitate processing and easy processing fosters acceptance of the claim. Alternatively, according to an illusion-of-evidence account, related photos may increase acceptance of the claim because they are treated as tentative supportive evidence. We disentangle these potential mechanisms by using comparative claims. In forming comparative judgments, people first assess attributes of the linguistic subject of comparison and subsequently compare them to attributes of the referent (Tversky, 1977). Hence, photos of the linguistic subject in a sentence should facilitate, but photos of the linguistic referent should impair, fluent processing of this sequence. In contrast, a photo of either the subject or the referent can be perceived as tentative evidence. In two experiments (total N = 1200), photos of the subject increased acceptance of comparative claims relative to a no-photo condition (a truthiness effect), but only when the subject was otherwise difficult to visualize. Photos of the referent decreased acceptance of comparative claims relative to a no-photo condition (a falsiness effect), but only when the subject of comparison was otherwise easy to visualize. All results are consistent with a context-sensitive fluency account: increases in fluency foster, and decreases in fluency impair, acceptance of a claim as true. The results provide no support for an illusion-of-evidence account.

提出相关的非证明照片时，主张更有可能被判定为真实（Newman等，2012）。根据处理流利性帐户，相关照片有助于处理，而易于处理有助于接受索赔。或者，根据证据的幻觉，相关照片可能会增加对索赔的接受程度，因为它们被视为初步的支持性证据。我们通过使用比较性权利要求来解开这些潜在的机制。在形成比较判断时，人们首先评估比较的语言主题的属性，然后将它们与所指对象的属性进行比较（Tversky，1977）。因此，句子中的语言主题照片应能提供便利，但语言对象的照片应损害，流畅地处理此序列。相反，被摄对象或被摄对象的照片可被视为初步证据。在两次实验中（总计N  = 1200），相对于无照片条件（真实性效果），对象的照片增加了对比较要求的接受度，但是仅当对象很难以其他方式可视化时才如此。相对于没有照片的情况（虚假效果），被摄对象的照片减少了对比较要求的接受，但仅当比较的主题易于可视化时。所有结果均与上下文敏感的流利性帐户相符：流利性增强会增加，流利性损害会减少，将索赔视为真实。结果不提供证据支持的幻觉。