Interruptions alter transmitted meanings

This proposed hypothesis asks whether interruptions in retelling can make people pass on a wrong meaning more often, with evidence and checking time held equal. A claim is linked to its source during checking. Fragmented checking could erase the link and reset progress. The test compares uninterrupted checks, reset-prone interruptions, and interruptions paired with a record that preserves the claim-source link. A neutral interruption controls for attention loss. Its decisive prediction is selective rescue: preserving the link should lower the wrong-to-right transmission ratio beyond standard models of accumulating evidence, attention interference, or story editing.