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Science Quickly

Bad Audio Can Hurt a Scientist's Credibility

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2018

⏱️ 3 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Listeners gave more credence to a scientist’s radio interview when the audio was good quality than they did to the same material when the audio was poor. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

0:11.0

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

0:19.6

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawc.co.jot.com.j, that's y-A-K-U-L-T-C-O-J-P.

0:28.4

When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

0:33.7

This is Scientific American's 60-second science. I'm Christopher in Taliatta.

0:38.9

In the age of fake news, it's worth remembering.

0:41.9

The medium is the message.

0:43.8

For example, psychological studies have shown that text that's hard to read is more likely to be deemed untrue.

0:50.1

Now a study suggests that when radio shows interview guests over bad phone lines,

0:54.5

listeners might discount the credibility of a speaker and her work.

0:58.3

We find over and over again that the easier something is to process,

1:03.8

the more likely you ought to assume that it's true, and the more compelling you find it.

1:08.6

Norbert Schwartz is a social and cognitive psychologist at the University of Southern California,

1:13.4

who readily agreed to record himself in a higher quality format for this story

1:17.5

than we'd get by recording his phone line.

1:20.4

Schwartz and its collaborator Aaron Newman asked 99 volunteers to listen to an interview about genetics

1:25.4

on the public radio program Science Friday.

1:28.5

One recording was presented in normal phone quality.

1:30.8

It grows horns in Holstein and replaces it with the allele that stops horns growing in Angus.

1:36.5

But the other was tampered with, to cut its quality even more.

1:44.0

Hard to hear and less compelling.

...

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