Psychologists Study Beliefs about Iraq

Research on the way people processed media reports about the Iraq war tells us more about how we create our beliefs and memories.
Psychologist Professor Stephan Lewandowsky of the University of Western Australia and team report their study of more than 800 people from Australia, the US and Germany, in the March issue of the journal Psychological Science.
...The researchers asked whether people believed statements based on two kinds of press reports: one type that had been retracted and one that continued to be reported as fact.
..."People do not discount corrected information unless they are suspicious about it or unless they are given some other hypothesis with which to interpret the information."
He says this has important implications in the judicial system where judges often instruct juries to disregard certain information.