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 'Animals-Good' than 'Animals-Bad' Negative d-scores: support a stronger association between 'Animals-Bad' than 'Animals-Good'
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.
3.5 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.
Hypothesis-consistent pairings vs. hypothesis-inconsistent pairings; tested within-subjects
=> order is counterbalanced by groupnumber assignment
Sequence:
Sequence:
1. Attribute sorting training
2. 1. Test Block of hypothesis-consistent* pairings with 20 trials (half the participant start with inconsistent pairings)
3. 2. Test Block of hypothesis-consistent pairings with 40 trials
4. 1. Test Block of hypothesis-inconsistent pairings with 20 trials
5. 2. Test Block of hypothesis-inconsistent pairings with 40 trials
In all Test Blocks:
• attributes as well as targets are randomly selected without replacement
Stimuli can be edited under section Editable Stimuli
• start instruction page is provided as an html page. It automatically adapts to different category labels UNLESS
the number of attributes and/or targets have been changed. In this case, changes have to be
made to file "intro_stiat.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_stiat.htm":
change:
File Name: singletargetiat_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 |
| latdiffa | Difference in mean latencies of the first blocks (first compatible and first incompatible block) |
| latdiffb | Difference in mean latencies of the second blocks (second compatible and second incompatible block) |
| latdiff | Overall difference in mean latencies between compatible and incompatible blocks |
| 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 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: singletargetiat_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 | 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 |
| latdiffa | Difference in mean latencies of the first blocks (first compatible and first incompatible block)(Only meaningful for the last row of data in the raw data file - upon completion of IAT) |
| latdiffb | Difference in mean latencies of the second blocks (second compatible and second incompatible block)(Only meaningful for the last row of data in the raw data file - upon completion of IAT) |
| latdiff | Overall difference in mean latencies between compatible and incompatible blocks (Only meaningful for the last row of data in the raw data file - upon completion of IAT) |
| 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 (Only meaningful for the last row of data in the raw data file - upon completion of IAT) 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 (Only meaningful for the last row of data in the raw data file - upon completion of IAT) |
| propRT300 | The proportion of response latencies < 300ms |
| excludeCriteriaMet | 1 = yes, exclusion suggested by Greenwald et al (2003, p.214, Table 4):(Only meaningful for the last row of data in the raw data file - upon completion of IAT) 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 |