Dr. Hong Xu is Associate Professor of Psychology, Associate Chair (Research) in School of Social Sciences, with a courtesy appointment in Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. She obtained Ph.D. in Psychology, Master’s in Statistics, both from University of Chicago, and B.S. in Psychology from Peking University. After her postdoctoral training at Columbia University, she joined NTU as an assistant professor in 2009. Her research expertise is in visual neuroscience, perception, multisensory integration, cognition and behaviour, and its applications to human-computer interaction and user experience. 

Effect of Social Cues on Trust in Speaker and Content on Social Media

How do people trust speakers and information on social media? Previous studies found that   social cues influenced trustworthiness of facial images. However, the effects of social cues (emotion and attire), display mode (monitor and hologram), and communication modes (video, text, and audio) on trust in social media remain unclear. We examined how these factors affect trust evaluations in three studies by manipulating communication mode, content veracity, facial emotion, attire of the speaker, and display mode. We found that emotion and attire consistently foster trust perceptions in social media, for static images and dynamic videos. The current studies provide insights into the effect of social cues on trust in social media and fake news detection.