96 © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. Special Section: Making Use of Null Age Effects Misinformation Effect in Aging: A New Light with Equivalence Testing Marine Tessoulin, PhD, 1, * Jean-Michel Galharret, MS, 2 Anne-Laure Gilet, PhD, 1 and Fabienne Colombel, PhD 1 1 Univ Nantes, Univ Angers, Laboratoire de Psychologie des Pays de la Loire (LPPL - EA 4638), Nantes, France. 2 CNRS, Laboratoire de Mathématiques Jean Leray (LMJL- UMR 6629), Nantes, France. *Address correspondence to: Marine Tessoulin, PhD, Université de Nantes, Laboratoire de Psychologie des Pays de la Loire (LPPL 4638), Chemin de la Censive du Tertre, BP 81227, 44312 Nantes Cedex 3, France. E-mail: Marine.Tessoulin@univ-nantes.fr Received: December 22, 2018; Editorial Decision Date: April 26, 2019 Decision Editor: Angela Gutchess, PhD Abstract Objectives: To better characterize the formation of false memories in older adults, we conducted a study using a French adaptation of the misinformation paradigm from Loftus, Levidow, and Duensing (1992). We aimed to show higher false memory production in older than in younger adults. Method: One hundred and four younger adults (18–30 years) and 104 older adults (70–95 years) took part in the study. Participants were presented with a misinformation paradigm through the viewing of a short video followed by a question- naire containing misinformation about the flm. After a short delay (45 min), they performed a recognition task. Results: Contrary to our hypothesis, the results analyzed with a Welch t test did not reveal a greater misinformation effect in older adults than in younger adults. Results were reanalyzed using the equivalence test which indicated that younger and older adults are statistically equivalent and not statistically different. Discussion: The equivalence test helped to clarify the contradictory results of the literature. Furthermore, such results show the interest to reconsider misinformation effect in aging. Keywords: Aging, Equivalence test, False memories, Misinformation effect Our frenetic digital world makes it possible to disseminate a multitude of information very quickly via a wide variety of social networks, with an ever-increasing amount of er- roneous information. This fake news or alternative facts abound on the web and have become a routine phenom- enon. For example, during the 3 months preceding the U.S. presidential election in 2016, an analysis by Buzzfeed (Silverman, 2016) reported that the 20 most popular fake news items were shared 87,11,000 times while the 20 most important political facts were shared 73,67,000 times. In a recent study, Guess, Nagler, and Tucker (2019) investigated Facebook sharing of fake news and examined the charac- teristics of those who shared it. They observed those over 65 years disseminated these alternative facts much more widely than young adults. So, are older people more recep- tive to misleading information? In light of this type of study, one may ask what kind of memory trace of misleading in- formation is retained and whether older people are more inclined to integrate misleading information. To memorize is to reconstruct reality rather than re- member information veridically. A new memory is a cre- ation that implies reality but also our beliefs, knowledge about the world, and old memories. Thus, memories are vulnerable to distortions (e.g., Dehon, 2012; Schacter, Guerin, & St Jacques, 2011). Distortions are a normal phe- nomenon that can occur in adults and are amplifed in older adults (e.g., Lövdén, 2003; Schacter, Koutstaal, & Norman, 1997). Studying distortions consists of considering the Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences cite as: J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci, 2020, Vol. 75, No. 1, 96–103 doi:10.1093/geronb/gbz057 Advance Access publication May 10, 2019 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/article/75/1/96/5487940 by guest on 24 December 2022