Memória e Fake News: Contribuições da Psicologia Cognitiva para a Compreensão do Fenômeno da Desinformação

Although false information has been systematically used for political and economic purposes for several centuries, it has recently reached unprecedented levels of infl uence and “contagion”. This occurs due to a series of factors, especially technological and economic ones. A plethora of terms such as fake news, disinformation, mal-information, misinformation, counterinformation, among others, have been used to describe the phenomenon, which is complex and requires research in multiple areas. However, there is a scarcity of literature in cognitive psychology related to this issue, especially regarding memory. In order to address this gap, the present article aims to establish connections between these phenomena and memory. In addition to this more theoretical eff ort, we conducted a brief review of publications in Portuguese and English that present data on the phenomenon. We sought to address the defi nition and proliferation of misinformation/disinformation, as well as related cognitive and non-cognitive factors. A greater focus was placed on the role of episodic, semantic, and collective memories; repetition of content; memory performance and confi dence; social and memory conformity. Possible strategies for coping with misinformation/disinformation and directions for future research were also addressed. Most of the cognitive psychology studies found address the phenomenon focusing on reasoning and decision-making, disregarding the possible role of memory. Nonetheless, false information is rarely entirely new, as decision-making and reasoning processes are broadly supported by the evocation of semantic memories. Therefore, considering the role of memory is essential not only for a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon but also for tackling it eff ectively.Keywords: Memory, cognition, misinformation, disinformation, fake new