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. 2023 Feb 23;18(2):e0281991.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281991. eCollection 2023.

Does prestige bias influence the recall and transmission of COVID-19-related information? Protocol registration for an experimental study conducted online

Edwine Soares de Oliveira  1   2 , André Luiz Borba do Nascimento  3 , Washington Soares Ferreira Junior  4 , Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque  2
Affiliations

Does prestige bias influence the recall and transmission of COVID-19-related information? Protocol registration for an experimental study conducted online

Edwine Soares de Oliveira et al. PLoS One. .

Update in

Abstract

In epidemic and pandemic contexts, such as that of COVID-19, epidemiological changes are continuous, and many people do not have access to accurate, up-to-date information. In this context, social learning can be an advantageous survival strategy. We investigate whether people remember and communicate information attributed to someone prestigious more often than that attributed to family members, politicians, and people with experience in public health. The experimental phase will include a recall stage and an information transmission stage, which will be based on a fictitious text containing an opinion about a drug treatment for COVID-19. There will be four versions of the text, and each participant will be assigned one of these versions for the investigation. The participants will be instructed to read the fictional story and then complete a distraction exercise. Subsequently, a recall test will be performed, where they will be asked to recount the story as accurately as possible. The second stage of the experiment is aimed at testing the transmission of information where we will conduct a linear chain transmission experiment, where eight chains of four participants will be used for each story. They will be asked to write down their recollection of the material. This text will undergo spelling error correction and then be sent to the next participant in the chain through the platform. At the end of the experiment, there will be a self-reporting questionnaire for the participants; this allows for triangulation of the data.

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Conflict of interest statement

All Author declared that no competing interest exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Parameters used to calculate the sample size based on a power analysis.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Recall experiment to be performed in Experiment I.
Figure based on the protocol adapted from Silva et al. [18].
Fig 3
Fig 3. Representation of a linear chain transmission study [30].
Fig 4
Fig 4. Representation of the information transmission experiment through a linear transmission chain.
Figure based on the protocol adapted from Jiménez et al. [31].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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