Quality
of recordings. Seriously.
Australian National
University
Separating fact from
fiction in the age of alternate facts is becoming increasingly difficult, and
now a new study has helped reveal why. Research by Dr Eryn Newman of The Australian National University (ANU) has found that when people listen to recordings of a scientist presenting their work, the quality of audio had a significant impact on whether people believed what they were hearing, regardless of who the researcher was or what they were talking about.
Dr Newman, of the ANU
Research School of Psychology, said the results showed when it comes to
communicating science, style can triumph over substance.
"When people are assessing the credibility of information, most of the time people are making a judgment based on how something feels," Dr Newman said."Our results showed that when the sound quality was poor, the participants thought the researcher wasn't as intelligent, they didn't like them as much and found their research less important."
The study used
experiments where people viewed video clips of scientists speaking at
conferences. One group of participants heard the recordings in clear
high-quality audio, while the other group heard the same recordings with
poor-quality audio.
Participants were then
asked to evaluate the researchers and their work. Those who listened to the
poorer quality audio consistently evaluated the scientists as less intelligent
and their research as less important.
In a second
experiment, researchers upped the ante and conducted the same experiment using
renowned scientists discussing their work on the well-known US Science Friday
radio program. This time the recordings included audio of the scientists being
introduced with their qualifications and institutional affiliations."It
made no difference," she said."As soon as we reduced the audio
quality, all of a sudden the scientists and their research lost
credibility."
As with the first
experiments, participants thought the research was worse, the scientists were
less competent and they also reported finding their work less interesting.
Dr Newman said in a
time when genuine science is struggling to be heard above fake news and
alternate facts, researchers need to consider not only the content of their
messages, but features of the delivery.
"Another recent
study showed false information travels six times faster than real information
on Twitter," she said."Our results show that it's not just about who
you are and what you are saying, it's about how your work is presented."
A research paper for
the study has been published in the journals Science Communication.
The study was
co-authored by Professor Norbert Schwarz of the University of Southern
California.