Search Fluency Mistaken for Understanding: Ease of Information Retrieval from the Internet Inflates Internal Knowledge Confidence

Internet search engines boast material features (e.g., Google’s knowledge panels, Featured Snippets) that increase the speed with which users find answers to queries—while reducing their effort—to create a seamless media experience. Yet, ability instantaneously retrieve through digital may come at metacognitive cost. This experiment examines effect of fluency on internal (in “brain”) confidence. In question-answering task, participants report higher ratings confidence accompanying immediate access Snippets than those delayed or no Snippets. The effects information not only occur for specific topics relevant has been retrieved but also irrelevant information. When people have explanations enhance information, external retrieval serve as heuristic Search contribute inadvertently strain users’ distinguish between mind and machine source knowledge.