Ignore that! Does highlighting a misleading cue improve recall memory for climate change science?

Effectively communicating climate science is critical to garnering support for climate action. There can be many challenges to communicating scientific information. For example, information that is complex or conveys risk can be difficult to absorb. Expanding on previous research, we aimed to test how manipulation of cue salience effected recall memory, metacognition, and climate opinion. Participants (N = 159) were randomly allocated to read a summary relating to either a highlighted-cue, priming, or control condition before reading climate change facts. Following a retention interval participants completed a test of recall memory and answered questions related to opinions (belief, risk perception, policy support) about climate change as well as political affiliation. It was hypothesised that participants in the highlighted-cue condition would score higher on the memory and metacognition variables compared to the other conditions, and participants in the highlighted-cue and priming conditions would score higher on opinion variables than controls. A series of moderation analyses (with political affiliation as the moderator) were used to test the hypotheses. A significant difference between conditions was found for the variable of belief, but not in the hypothesised direction. None of the hypotheses were therefore supported by the data. Limitations, and future directions are discussed.