請依下文回答第 46 題至第 50 題：
       The marketing term “effective frequency” refers to the idea that a consumer has to see or hear an ad a number oftimes before its message hits home. Essentially, the more you say something, the more it sticks in－and possibly on－people’s heads. It doesn’t even have to be true－and that’s the problem. What advertisers call “effective frequency,”psychologists call the “illusory truth effect”: the more you hear something, the easier it is for your brain to process, whichmakes it feel true, regardless of its basis in fact.
       “Each time, it takes fewer resources to understand,” says Lisa Fazio, a psychology professor at VanderbiltUniversity. “That ease of processing gives it the weight of a gut feeling.” That feeling of truth allows misconceptions tosneak into our knowledge base, where they masquerade as facts. One example Fazio and her research team give is thebelief that vitamin C can prevent colds, which many people have taken as a fact but is actually a misconception simplybecause it is long repeated.
        Even in the absence of endless repetition, we’re more likely to believe what we hear than to question it objectively,thanks to another psychological principle: confirmation bias.
        “In general, human beings, after hearing any claim, behave like naive scientists and tend to look for informationthat confirms the initial conjecture,” says Ajay Kalra, a marketing professor at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business.“In an interesting experiment, a group of consumers was told a leather jacket, Brand A, was very good. When they laterexamined several brands, they tended to spend more time looking at Brand A and evaluating it more highly than otherbrands.”
        The same principle applies to a coffee company’s claim that its coffee is the “richest” in the world. “Confirmationbias typically applies to situations where information is ambiguous and hard to refute,” he explains. “The more often youhear a message, the more the confirmatory bias likely comes into play.”
         It’s no wonder that many of us fall for false claims on social media, especially when we see them tweeted andretweeted again and again. How can we fight back? There are ways to lessen the influence of repeated claims. One of thebest: don’t rely on a single source for information. Read stories from multiple news outlets and listen to a variety ofopinions. Commit to staying open-minded, and consult with friends and colleagues whose perspectives differ. Take asecond to consider how you know something is true. In this way, you can stymie the effects of repetition. It’s a greatthing to do on social media: before you share something, take that second and pause. Otherwise, you risk becoming partof the echo chamber that keeps falsehoods circulating.
【題組】46 What is the purpose of the passage?
(A) To entertain the readers.
(B) To inform the readers.
(C) To mislead the readers.
(D) To criticize the readers.