Script Author: Sean Draine (seandr@millisecond.com)
Last Modified: January 25, 2025 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond
Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC
The Implicit Association Task (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) is a widely-used cognitive-behavioral paradigm that measures the strength of automatic (implicit) associations between concepts in people’s minds relying on latency measures in a simple sorting task.
In the typical IAT procedure, participants are asked to sort attributes (e.g. "joyful"; "tragic") and target items (e.g "daisy" vs. "wasp") into predetermined categories via keystroke presses. The basic task is to press a left key (E) if an item (e.g. "joyful") belongs to the category presented on the left (e.g. "Good") and to press the right key (I) if the word (e.g. "tragic") belongs to the category ("Bad") presented on the right. For the actual test, participants are asked to sort categories into the paired/combined categories (e.g. "Flower OR Good" on the left vs. "Insect OR Bad" on the right). Pairings are reversed for a second test (e.g. "Insects OR Good" on the left vs. "Flowers OR Bad" on the right).
The traditional IAT procedure tests category pairings in a blocked format (test 1 vs. test2 with reversed pairings) and requires a potential recoding of information inbetween the category switch from test 1 to test 2. Rothermund et al (2009) suggest that this potential recoding of information has a strong effect on the IAT results and propose an alteration to the traditional IAT procedure to eliminate recoding. The proposed change is to test category pairings in a within-subjects mixed design: In the recoding free IAT (IAT-RF), category pairings can switch from trial to trial within the same block.
The strength of an association between concepts in IATs is measured by the standardized mean difference score of the 'hypothesis-inconsistent' pairings and 'hypothesis-consistent' pairings (d-score) (Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003). In general, the higher the d-score the stronger is the association between the 'hypothesis-consistent' pairings (decided by researchers). Negative d-scores suggest a stronger association between the 'hypothesis-inconsistent' pairings. Inquisit calculates d-scores using the improved scoring algorithm as described in Greenwald et al (2003). Error trials are handled by requiring respondents to correct their responses according to recommendation (p.214).
D-scores obtained with this script: Positive d-scores: support a stronger association between 'Flowers-Good' and 'Insects-Bad' than for the opposite pairings Negative d-scores: support a stronger association between 'Insects-Good' and 'Flowers-Bad' than for the opposite pairings
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. K. L. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480.
Greenwald, A. G., Nosek, B. A., & Banaji, M. R. (2003). Understanding and Using the Implicit Association Test: I. An Improved Scoring Algorithm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 197-216.
Rothermund, K., Teige-Mocigemba, S., Gast, A., & Wentura, D. (2009). Eliminating the influence of recoding in the Implicit Association Test: The Recoding-Free Implicit Association Test (IAT-RF). Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 84-98.
5 minutes
Participants are asked to categorize attributes (e.g. "joyful"; "tragic") and target items (e.g "daisy" vs. "wasp") into predetermined categories via keystroke presses. The basic task is to press a left key (E) if an item (e.g. "joyful") belongs to the category presented on the left (e.g. "Good") and to press the right key (I) if the word (e.g. "tragic") belongs to the category ("Bad") presented on the right. For practice, participants sort items into the target categories "Flowers vs. Insects" and the attribute categories "Good vs. Bad". For the test, participants are asked to sort categories into the paired/combined categories (e.g. "Flower OR Good" on the left vs. "Insect OR Bad" on the right). Pairings are reversed for a second test (e.g. "Insects OR Good" on the left vs. "Flowers OR Bad" on the right). Order is counterbalanced by groupnumber.
Hypothesis-consistent pairings vs. hypothesis-inconsistent pairings; tested within-subjects in a mixed design
Sequence:
1. Attribute sorting training: 16 trials; 8 positive; 8 negative; order is randomly determined
2. Target Category sorting training: 16 trials, 4 flowers left, 4 flowers right, 4 insects left, 4 insects right; order is randomly determined
3. Combined category practice: 32 trials, 16 flowers-good left (insect-bad right); 16 insect-good left (flower-bad right); order is randomly determined
4. Combined test: 128 trials, 64 flowers-good left (insect-bad right); 16 insect-good left (flower-bad right); order is randomly determined
Each trial starts with a fixation cross (1) that is presented for 500ms.
Stimuli can be edited under section Editable Stimuli
Instructions can be edited under section Editable Instructions
File Name: iat_rf_summary*.iqdat
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| inquisit.version | Inquisit version number |
| computer.platform | Device platform: win | mac |ios | android |
| computer.touch | 0 = device has no touchscreen capabilities; 1 = device has touchscreen capabilities |
| computer.hasKeyboard | 0 = no external keyboard detected; 1 = external keyboard detected |
| startDate | Date the session was run |
| startTime | Time the session was run |
| subjectId | Participant ID |
| groupId | Group number |
| sessionId | Session number |
| elapsedTime | Session duration in ms |
| completed | 0 = Test was not completed 1 = Test was completed |
| d | Overall d-score; main DV Suggested Interpretation D-score <= -0.65 => "a strong" preference for hypothesis-NONconforming pairings D-score < -0.35 => "a moderate" preference for hypothesis-NONconforming pairings D-score < -0.15 => "a slight" preference for hypothesis-NONforming pairings -0.15 <= D-score <= 0.15 "little to no" preference D-score > 0.15 => "a slight" preference for hypothesis-conforming pairings D-score > 0.35 => "a moderate" preference for hypothesis-conforming pairings D-score >= 0.65 => "a strong" preference for hypothesis-conforming pairings percentCorrect: the overall percent correct score of initial responses in test trials of D-score qualifying latencies |
| propRT300 | The proportion of response latencies < 300ms |
| excludeCriteriaMet | 1 = yes, exclusion supported per Greenwald et al (2003, p.214, Table 4) More than 10% of all response latencies are faster than 300ms 0 = otherwise |
File Name: iat_rf_raw*.iqdat
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| build | Inquisit version number |
| computer.platform | Device platform: win | mac |ios | android |
| computer.touch | 0 = device has no touchscreen capabilities; 1 = device has touchscreen capabilities |
| computer.hasKeyboard | 0 = no external keyboard detected; 1 = external keyboard detected |
| date | Date the session was run |
| time | Time the session was run |
| subject | Participant ID |
| group | Group number |
| session | Session number |
| blockcode | The name the current block (built-in Inquisit variable) |
| blocknum | The number of the current block (built-in Inquisit variable) |
| trialcode | The name of the currently recorded trial (built-in Inquisit variable) |
| trialnum | The number of the currently recorded trial (built-in Inquisit variable) trialnum is a built-in Inquisit variable; it counts all trials run even those that do not store data to the data file. |
| item | The presented item |
| response | The final trial response (scancodes of the keys pressed) 18 = E 23 = I 57 = spacebar press script saves the final and -by design- correct response for each trial |
| correct | The accuracy of the initial response 0 = initial response was incorrect and needed to be corrected 1 = initial response is correct |
| latency | The latency of the final (correct) response in ms; measured from onset of stim |
The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.
| Name | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| showSummaryFeedback | Set parameter showsummaryfeedback = true to display summary feedback to participants at the end set parameter showsummaryfeedback = false if no summary feedback should be presented to participants | true |