Florida State University (FSU) School of Information (iSchool) doctoral student Yue Liu presented her research on deepfakes and digital literacy at the iConference 2026, an international gathering of information science scholars. The conference, hosted by Edinburgh Napier University, held a virtual program from March 23-26 and an in-person session in Edinburgh, Scotland, from March 29-April 2.
Liu presented her paper titled “Information priming for resilience: strengthening belief systems in the age of deepfakes.” Her research looks into how information priming can support human cognition and behavior when people are exposed to multimodal deepfakes in a time when artificial intelligence (AI) makes misinformation increasingly difficult to identify.
“Presenting at iConference was a very meaningful experience for me,” Liu said. “As this work is part of my dissertation, having the opportunity to share it with an international academic audience was both encouraging and motivating.”
The study, under her major professor, Dr. Shuyuan Metcalfe, aims to better understand how individuals can be helped in navigating through misleading digital content.
“As generative AI becomes more widespread, misinformation is increasingly difficult to identify,” Liu said. “My research takes a different approach by focusing on how people perceive and respond to false information.”
One thing that stood out to Liu during the conference was the number of researchers from other iSchools who approached her to discuss the experimental design of the study.
“They were particularly interested in how I structured my experimental groups and how the design could evolve alongside rapidly changing technologies,” Liu said. “These conversations gave me new ideas for refining my approach to studying deepfake-related behaviors and helped me think more carefully about how to design experiments that remain relevant over time.”
The experiment used a mixed design, applying priming as a between-subjects factor across text, image, and multimedia content with embedded ground truth. Participants were placed in control, conceptual priming, or perceptual priming groups. Perceptions and detection performance data were collected in both objective and subjective manners.
Liu described her experience of presenting at the conference as encouraging.
“It helped me see the potential of this research direction more clearly and strengthened my confidence in continuing my academic work,” Liu said.
Beyond her own presentation, Liu participated in workshops and attended sessions led by fellow scholars, including researchers within FSU’s iSchool. Drs. Marcia Mardis and Denise Gomez conducted a workshop, while Dr. Sein Oh, a graduate of the iSchool at FSU who now works with Louisiana State University, held a poster session presentation.
“Even while attending a conference in Scotland, it was meaningful to connect with scholars from my own academic community,” Liu said. “It made me feel both proud and supported.”
The published study can be accessed here: publicera.kb.se/ir/article/view/64198