I'm trying to track down a fallacy or effect that was once explained to me and which I found plausible: The idea that whoever has the more complex and detailed mental model of a topic under question wins a discussion about a question - independent of the actual truth of the matter (and assuming no malicious intent).

The example cited as I remember it was about visual (microscope) inspection of blood samples for some boolean factor (present or not). Two persons got the same samples and were trained to recognize the factor one was always told the truth and the other was lied to a certain fraction of times. After the learning period both had to decide on the factor of some samples together. The result: Even though the person who was lied to had the less accurate model he almost always dominated the decision.

The offered explanation was that the lied to candidate had the more complex model (it somehow had to incorporate factors representing the lies) and that led to the availability of arguments (criteria to look for supposedly explaining the difference) which could be used to convince the other person - despite the falsity of those arguments.

Problem is: I can't find any studies or the like supporting this. Do you know of such a model strength effect? I think it is quite relevant as it seems to be behind the ability of liars or rhetorics to convice the audience by making up complex and impressive structures independent of their truth (the truth must just be inavailable enough).