Our brains believe information automatically(自动地)-even if it's false-because we can learn efficiently this way. "We're learning false information not because we're poor learners or not working hard," says David Rapp, a psychology and education professor at Northwestern University. "In many cases, it's a useful skill for us to accept what people tell us, because often what people tell us is true."
When we hear new information, those fresh facts don't cover what we knew before. We'll draw on old or new information when the situation comes up. ___________ . Short-term memories are easier for our brains to access than facts we heard longer ago, because they're fresher in our minds-even if they're wrong. Since we have to think back further to remember old information, we will often ignore it in favour of new inaccurate(不准确的)information. New information is what we're currently thinking about or has been recently presented to us, while the old one isn't as readily available.
We also buy into the facts that seem more reasonable. Often, this means they fit better with what we want to believe, which can explain why people quote different facts in political debates. Both candidates said something that was objectively true or not, but people would go with what they hope to be true.
Things get even trickier when truth and falsehood coexist in the information. For instance, our brains aren't sure whether to believe the descriptions of London in Harry Potter. "Don't look for that train station to Hogwarts, but there might be streets mentioned that are real," says Dr. Rapp. In fact, our brains can keep track of what's true or false by mentally tagging(标记)facts as either true or false, but sorting all that information takes time. In many cases, we are unlikely to think critically to get information, especially when we are reading for pleasure.
However, it's worth putting in the extra effort to have a second thought about the information that seems doubtful. "With the ease that we can look things up on the Internet," says Dr. Rapp, "there's no reason not to." "Seek out reliable sources," he adds.
