Heuristic

Keats heuristicIn a series of 4 studies published in the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, my colleagues and I examined a phenomenon known as the Keats heuristic, whereby aesthetic statements are judged as more truthful than their less aesthetic paraphrases. We found that antimetabolic statements which follow an A-B-B-A pattern (such as “all for one, one for all”) were judged as more accurate compared to their non-antimetabolic equivalents. Fluency – or the speed of processing – explained the accuracy benefit they were afforded.