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 SC-IAT script is based on Karpinski et al (2006) and the general IAT template script published by Millisecond
Differences btw. this script and Karpinski & Steinman (2006) - error responses in this script need to be corrected before moving on - no response window: stimuli stay on screen until a correct response is given. A reminder to "respond more quickly" is optional if latencies exceed a certain limit (see section "Editable Parameters" for more info) - no error response correction necessary for d-score calculation as error responses needed to be corrected before moving on (therefore an error penalty was added automatically to each error latency)
IAT-Background Info:
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). This differs slightly from Karpinski & Steinman (2006) who removed noResponse trials from d-score calculations and replaced error responses with the mean latency + 400ms penalty.
D-scores obtained with this script: positive D-scores: positive attitude towards animals negative D-scores: negative attitude towards animals
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.
Karpinski, A. & Steinman, R.B. (2006). The Single Category Implicit Association Test as a Measure of Implicit Social Cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 16–32.
5 minutes
Participants are asked to categorize attributes (e.g. "joyful"; "tragic") and animal names 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. "Animal OR Good") and to press the right key (I) if the word (e.g. "tragic") belongs to the category presented on the right ("Bad") . Pairings are reversed for a second test: 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 presented on the right ("Animal OR Bad"). The order of the pairings is counterbalanced by groupnumber.
a) Block Practice Compatible* (24 trials); responses not counted towards D-score
b) Block Compatible (72 trials)
c) Block Practice InCompatible (24 trials); responses not counted towards D-score
d) Block InCompatible (72 trials)
•order compatible - incompatible counterbalanced by groupnumber
=> one D-score is determined
TRIALS
After a pretrialpause of 250ms (default, editable), stimuli are presented until correct response is given.
In contrast to Karpinski & Steinman (2006), participants have to correct error responses and stimulus stays
on screen until response is corrected.
If latencies exceed a certain limit, a reminder to "respond more quickly" is optional in this script
(see Editable Values for more info).
- 21 words for Attribute Categories Good/Bad
- 8 words for target category (here: insects)
Instructions can be edited under section Editable Instructions
File Name: singlecategoryiat_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 |
| m1 | Mean latencies (in ms) of correct responses in compatible block |
| sd1 | Standard deviation of latencies of correct responses in compatible block |
| m2 | Mean latencies (in ms) of correct responses in compatible block |
| sd2 | Standard deviation of latencies of correct responses in compatible block |
| latdiff | Difference between mean latencies in incompatible and compatible block |
| d | 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 suggested by Greenwald et al (2003, p.214, Table 4) More than 10% of all response latencies are faster than 300ms 0 = otherwise |
File Name: singlecategoryiat_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. |
| conditionOrder | C-ic: consistent -> inconsistent ic-c: inconsistent -> consistent |
| response | Scancode of the response key pressed (e.g. 18='E' or 23='I') 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 |
| stimulusNumber | The number of the current stimulus |
| stimulusItem | The currently presented item |
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 (default) set parameter showsummaryfeedback = false if no summary feedback should be presented to participants | true |
| pretrialPause | Pause before stimuli presentation | 250 |
| showReminder | True = shows a reminder to respond faster if latencies exceeds a predetermined latency Karpinsky & Steinman (2006) call using a reminder "largly window dressing" but that the response window (in this script: a pseudo response window) might create a "sense of urgency" (p.18) false = does not show reminder to respond more quickly (default in this script) | false |
| reminderRT | If response latency is larger than reminderRT, a reminder is presented to respond faster (if parameters.showreminder = true) error responses have to be corrected in this script; this will add ms to their response latencies | 2000 |
| reminderDuration | Time that the reminder to respond more quickly stays on the screen | 500 |