Countering misinformation can reduce belief in the moment, but corrective messages quickly fade from memory. We tested whether the longer-term impact of fact-checks depends on when people receive them. In two experiments (total N = 2,683), participants read true and false headlines taken from social media. In the treatment conditions, “true” and “false” tags appeared before, during, or after participants read each headline. Participants in a control condition received no information about veracity. One week later, participants in all conditions rated the same headlines’ accuracy. Providing fact-checks after headlines (debunking) improved subsequent truth discernment more than providing the same information during (labeling) or before (prebunking) exposure. This finding informs the cognitive science of belief revision and has practical implications for social media platform designers.

抵制错误信息可以减少对这种情况的置信度，但是纠正信息会很快从记忆中消失。我们测试了事实检查的长期影响是否取决于人们何时接受检查。在两个实验中（总计N = 2683），参与者阅读了来自社交媒体的真假标题。在治疗条件下，参与者在阅读每个标题之前，之中或之后出现“ true”和“ false”标签。处于控制状态的参与者未收到有关准确性的信息。一周后，所有情况下的参与者都对标题的准确性进行了评估。提供了标题后的实况检查（戳穿）改善后续真理明辨超过期间（提供相同的信息的标记）或之前（prebunking） 接触。这一发现为认知修订的认知科学提供了信息，并且对社交媒体平台设计人员具有实际意义。