Subjects under time pressure or who had their cognitive load increased by a minor distraction made more errors in recalling whether the statements were true or false. But the errors weren’t random. The subjects were not equally likely to ignore some statements labeled “true” as they were to rely on some statements labeled “false.” Rather, their errors went in one direction: under any sort of pressure, they presumed all the statements were true, regardless of their labeling. This suggests our default setting is to believe what we hear is true.
