Data_Sheet_2_Spelling Errors in Brief Computer-Mediated Texts Implicitly Lead to Linearly Additive Penalties in Trustworthiness.xls

BackgroundSpelling errors in documents lead to reduced trustworthiness, but the mechanism for weighing the psychological assessment (i.e., integrative versus dichotomous) has not been elucidated. We instructed participants to rate content of texts, revealing that their implicit trustworthiness judgments show marginal differences specifically caused by spelling errors.
MethodsAn online experiment with 100 English-speaking participants were asked to rate 27 short text excerpts (∼100 words) about multiple sclerosis in the format of unmoderated health forum posts. In a counterbalanced design, some excerpts had no typographic errors, some had two errors, and some had five errors. Each participant rated nine paragraphs with a counterbalanced mixture of zero, two or five errors. A linear mixed effects model (LME) was assessed with error number as a fixed effect and participants as a random effect.
ResultsUsing an unnumbered scale with anchors of “completely untrustworthy” (left) and “completely trustworthy” (right) recorded as 0 to 100, two spelling errors resulted in a penalty to trustworthiness of 5.91 ± 1.70 (robust standard error) compared to the reference excerpts with zero errors, while the penalty for five errors was 13.5 ± 2.47; all three conditions were significantly different from each other (P < 0.001).
ConclusionParticipants who rated information about multiple sclerosis in a context mimicking an online health forum implicitly assigned typographic errors nearly linearly additive trustworthiness penalties. This contravenes any dichotomous heuristic or local ceiling effect on trustworthiness penalties for these numbers of typographic errors. It supports an integrative model for psychological judgments of trustworthiness.

【背景】文档中的拼写错误会降低文本的可信度，但当前针对心理评估的权衡机制（即整合式与二分式）尚未阐明。本研究招募被试对文本内容进行评分，结果显示，被试的内隐可信度判断仅因拼写错误出现边际性差异。
【方法】本研究开展一项线上实验，招募100名英语使用者作为被试，要求其对27段约100词的多发性硬化（multiple sclerosis）短篇文本节选进行评分，文本格式为无审核的健康论坛帖子。实验采用平衡设计：部分节选无排版错误，部分含2处错误，其余含5处错误。每名被试需对9段文本进行评分，文本错误数量（0、2、5）采用平衡混合设置。本研究采用线性混合效应模型（linear mixed effects model, LME）进行分析，以错误数量为固定效应，被试为随机效应。
【结果】本研究采用锚定为“完全不可信”（左侧）与“完全可信”（右侧）的无数字评分量表（评分范围为0~100）收集数据。与无错误的参考文本节选相比，存在2处拼写错误的文本可信度评分降低5.91±1.70（稳健标准误），存在5处错误的文本可信度评分降低13.5±2.47；三种实验条件下的评分均存在显著差异（P<0.001）。
【结论】在模拟健康论坛的场景下对多发性硬化相关信息进行评分的被试，其针对排版错误的可信度惩罚分值近似呈线性累加。该结果违背了针对此类数量排版错误的可信度惩罚的二分式启发式或局部天花板效应，支持了可信度心理判断的整合式模型。