Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Information from the news undoubtedly shapes what we believe is true, but we argue the language it employs also influences whether we think an assertion has a ground truth at all. Six studies examined how epistemic language in particular influences adults’ inferences of objectivity and truth. When headlines about novel topics (Studies 1a-b) or climate change (Studies 3a-b) presented information as belief (e.g., “Tortoise breeders believe tortoises are becoming more popular pets”), adults rated that information as less objective and less likely to be true compared to information presented as knowledge (e.g., “Tortoise breeders know [...]”). Epistemic language even influenced participants’ objectivity judgments when it had no influence on their truth judgments (Studies 2a-b). Overall, these results show the way epistemic language frames information affects what we perceive as true and, more so, whether we believe an objective truth exists in the first place.