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Research Article: Age differences in susceptibility to stroke-related health misinformation on social media: the role of prior experience and corrective feedback

Date Published: 2026-06-18

Abstract:
The rapid dissemination of complex health-related misinformation poses a critical threat to public health management and healthy lifestyles. To address this infodemic, our current research applied Signal Detection Theory to examine the joint impacts of age, prior stroke-related experience, and information prevalence on individuals' susceptibility to stroke-related misinformation on social media. In Experiment 1, participants from two diverse age groups evaluated stroke-related statements sourced from social media. Results indicated that no main age effect on the judgment criterion, nor did information prevalence significantly alter these criteria. Notably, a critical interaction emerged: younger adults with prior stroke-related experience (e.g., through family members) exhibited heightened misinformation susceptibility. They tended to adopt more liberal criteria, making them paradoxically more likely to accept misinformation as factual. Experiment 2 showed that providing immediate corrective feedback was associated with more conservative judgment criterion, particularly among those with prior stroke-related experience. Experiment 3 provided preliminary evidence that repeated exposure to corrective feedback was associated improved task-specific discriminability at a 1-week follow-up. Our research suggests that while information prevalence does not inherently dictate individuals' judgment, personal experience can unexpectedly increase vulnerability to online health misinformation. Overall, these findings suggest that corrective feedback may help calibrate judgment criterion in online health-information evaluation, although its causal and long-term effects require further testing with longer follow-up intervals.

Introduction:
The rapid dissemination of complex health-related misinformation poses a critical threat to public health management and healthy lifestyles. To address this infodemic, our current research applied Signal Detection Theory to examine the joint impacts of age, prior stroke-related experience, and information prevalence on individuals' susceptibility to stroke-related misinformation on social media.

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