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.
The strength of an association between concepts 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.
6 minutes
Participants are asked to categorize attributes (e.g. "loving"; "uncaring") and target items (e.g. name of partner vs. name of not partner) into predetermined categories via keystroke presses. The basic task is to press a left key (E) if an item (e.g. "loving") belongs to the category presented on the left (e.g. "Supportive") and to press the right key (I) if the word (e.g. "uncaring") belongs to the category ("Rejecting") presented on the right. For practice, participants sort items into the target categories "Partner vs. Not-Partner" and the attribute categories "Supportive vs. Rejecting". For the test, participants are asked to sort categories into the paired/combined categories (e.g. "Partner OR Supportive" on the left vs. "Not-Partner OR Rejecting" on the right). Pairings are reversed for a second test (e.g. "Not-Partner OR Supportive" on the left vs. "Partner OR Rejecting" on the right). Order is counterbalanced by groupnumber.
In this script, participants provide their own exemplars for the categories 'Romantic Partner' and 'Not Partner' (5 exemplars per category).
Hypothesis-consistent pairings vs. hypothesis-inconsistent pairings; tested within-subjects in a blocked format
=> order is counterbalanced by groupnumber assignment
odd groupnumbers run: consistent - inconconsistent pairings
even groupnumbers run: inconsistent - consistent pairings
Block Sequence:
1. Get the Custom Label for the category 'romantic partner' and get the individual Items
2. IAT general instructions
3. Target Category sorting training
4. Attribute sorting training
5. 1. Test Block of hypothesis-consistent* pairings with 20 trials (half the participant start with inconsistent pairings)
6. 2. Test Block of hypothesis-consistent pairings with 40 trials
7. Target Category sorting training with targets switching sides
8. 1. Test Block of hypothesis-inconsistent pairings with 20 trials
9. 2. Test Block of hypothesis-inconsistent pairings with 40 trials
In all Test Blocks:
• attributes and targets alternate
• attributes as well as targets are randomly selected without replacement
Trial Sequence:
Target -> until correct response -> ISI: 250ms (default)-> Target....
This script collects 5 exemplars for the categories Flower and Insects from each participant.
The categories tested can be edited under section Editable Stimuli
• start instruction page is provided as an html page. It automatically adapts to different images and category labels UNLESS
the number of attributes and/or targets have been changed. In this case, changes have to be
made to file "intro_iat.htm", so that the correct number of items are presented in the overview table.
Example: instead of 8 words for target A, only 5 should be presented:
in file "intro_iat.htm":
change:
File Name: customitemandlabeliat_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 |
| conditionOrder | C-ic: consistent -> inconsistent ic-c: inconsistent -> consistent |
| da | D-score of the first short blocks |
| db | D-score of the second long blocks |
| d | Overall d-score (non-weighted mean of the 2 d-scores); 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 |
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 |
| isi | Interstimulus interval (in ms) | 250 |