James, on the media, so woefully true! On the ability of our brains cells to distinguish the truth from lies, this is the truely pernicious thing about the Illusory Truth Effect: it works on those cells no matter how smart you are, no matter how aware of the lies you are.

The way to tell is not on a true/fase binary scale, but on a 1-10 scale.

I invite you to try it yourself: on a scale of 1-10.

A. Hillary Clinton is trustworthy.

B. Joe Biden's age affects his competence.

If you scored lower than a 10 on A or B, then your brain has to some degree succumbed to the illusory truth bias. (Can you you come up with factual evidence that makes you less than confident Clinton is trustworthy and Biden is competent?)