Division of Cognitive Labor and reading of multiple scientific documents on the internet

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In the proposed project it is to be examined how laypersons deal with conflicting scientific expert information on the internet. A widespread variety of internet research is experimentally simulated: Laypersons browse multiple, partly conflicting text documents for expert information in order to reach an informed decision. By coming across conflicting information, the central questions arise under which circumstances laypersons recognize intertextual conflicts and how they handle this paradoxical challenge in order to reach a decision about knowledge claims that surpass their own everyday understanding. The studies predominantly use conflicting claims from the fields of medicine and climate change. In the third project phase we intensify our examination of the resources which laypersons use to process and resolve conflicts. Thereby we differentiate between conflict detection, regulation and resolution as elaborated in our Content-Source-Integration (CSI) Model. In the first series of four studies the role of source characteristics, while dealing with conflicts, is examined. We focus on decompounding the source characteristics which essentially lead to the attribution of epistemic trust. Thereby we investigate the interaction of various source characteristics on conflict resolution as well as the interplay of source characteristics with text-inherent features. In addition, the influence of subject- and value-related prior beliefs on conflict detection, regulation and resolution is examined in another series of three studies. We explore to what extent laypersons use prior beliefs to resolve conflicts, and investigate how their subject- and value-related beliefs are transmitted via the relevance of the information which influences both conflict detection and regulation. Two additional studies are to clarify the role of laypeoples subjective assumptions about science (Folk Philosophy/Sociology of Science) and the interplay of the different resources used in the resolution of scientific conflicts. On a theoretical level the project aims for an extension of the Documents Model Framework through the CSI Model and for the extension of the Theory of the Division of Cognitive Labor, especially in regards to the handling of conflicting scientific evidence.