Go/No-Go Association Task (GNAT)

Background

The Go-Nogo Association Task (GNAT) is a cognitive-behavioral measurement tool of unconscious biases, leveraging the 'Go-Nogo' research paradigm of responding to signal and noise stimuli. Brian Nosek and Mahzarin Banaji developed the tool in 2001 as a research technique to assess implicit bias even for single target categories, independent of others. In contrast to reaction-time based tests of implicit bias (e.g. Implicit Association Test), the GNAT framework mainly focuses on accuracy data and specifically d' (d-prime) measures (measures of sensitivity to distinguish signals from noise in signal detection theory) to infer implicit bias.

The GNAT requires participants to quickly decide if presented stimuli (e.g. the word 'ant') belong to a certain category (e.g. 'Insects').
The basic task is to press the response key if the item belongs to the currently tested category (GO-trial) or refrain from responding if it doesn't (Nogo-Trials). Tested categories in the GNAT are typically 'compound' ones such as 'Insects OR Positive adjectives' that turn all trials presenting 'insect' word AND trials presenting positive adjectives such as 'beautiful' into GO-trials. Response deadlines in GO-Nogo trials force participants to make their decision quickly.

The basic premise of the GNAT is similar to that of the IAT: if you force people to very quickly sort items into pre-determined categories, they make fewer mistakes when the items are positively linked in one's mind than when they are not. In contrast to the IAT that measures response times, response times are restricted by design in the GNAT as participants should make their decisions fast. Brian Nosek and Mahzarin Banaji suggest response deadlines between 500-850ms to eliminate perfect responding (undesirable to establish d'prime measures) while not substantially lowering accuracy (preventing random responding).

Millisecond provides a template GNAT procedure originally programmed by Brian Nosek and further updated with signal detection measures by Millisecond. The template GNAT procedure (one with target words and one with target images) can easily be updated to run different stimuli sets and/or translated into different languages.

Task Procedure

The Millisecond GNAT template procedure measures implicit attitudes towards two independently assessed target categories (e.g. insects, fruit). Two runs of four test blocks each are run for the test. Each of the four test blocks tests four different 'compound' categories (two per target category) in a randomized order: insects OR Good; insects OR Bad, fruit OR Good, fruit OR Bad.

Participants are shown words in the center of the screen, one-by-one at high speed, and are asked to decide for each word if it belongs to the currently tested 'compound' category. For example, for the compound category 'insects OR Good', participants should respond if the presented words are "ant", "butterfly", "wasp", "beautiful", "lovely", "amazing" but should refrain from responding if the words are anything else (e.g. fruits or bad words). Performance feedback is provided after each response.

The two runs of the same four testing blocks differ only in their response deadlines. Response deadlines during run1 are set to 750ms and are reduced to 600ms during run2.

The GNAT procedure starts out with several practice blocks to familiarize participants to the stimuli and the general testing procedure. Practice blocks test each target category (e.g. insects, fruits) and each attribute category (e.g. positive and negative adjectives) separately. Each of those four practice blocks run 20 trials and response deadlines are set to 1000ms. Each test block (of 60 trials) is further preceded by a shorter practice block (16 trials) to familiarize participants to the 'compound' categories as well as the faster response deadlines.

What it Measures

The GNAT is a tool to measure implicit attitudes

Psychological domains

• Implicit Cognition: Cognitive Processes not under conscious control
• Social Cognition: People's thoughts and perceptions of themselves and others in the social world

Main Performance Metrics

• d' target difference scores: Difference scores of the two d' block scores for each target, e.g. 'insect-good' and 'insect-bad' blocks, as the main measure of a bias towards or against 'insects'

Psychiatric Conditions

GNAT measures are used, amongst others, for study with the following patient groups

• Smokers
• Alcohol Use Disorder
• Depression

Test Variations

References

Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Go/No-Go Association Task (GNAT).

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Nosek, B. A., & Banaji, M. R. (2001). The go/no-go association task. Social Cognition, 19(6), 625-666.

Spence, A. & Townsend, E. (2006). Implicit attitudes towards genetically modified (GM) foods: A comparison of context-free and context-dependent evaluations. Appetite, 46, 67-74.

Banfield, J. F., van der Lugt, A. H., Munte, T. F. (2006). Juicy fruit and creepy crawlies: An electrophysiological study of the implicit Go/NoGo association task. NeuroImage, 31, 1841-1849.

Teachman, B. A. (2007). Evaluating implicit spider fear associations using the Go/No-go Association Task. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 38, 156-167.

Gonsalkorale, K., von Hippel, W., Sherman, J. W., Klauer, K. C. (2009). Bias and regulation of bias in intergroup interactions: Implicit attitudes toward Muslims and interaction quality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 161-166.

Lee, S., Rogge, R. D., Reis, H. T. (2010). Assessing the Seeds of Relationship Decay Using Implicit Evaluations to Detect the Early Stages of Disillusionment.Psychological Science, 21, 857-864.

Gregg, A., & Sedikides, C. (2010). Narcissistic Fragility: Rethinking Its Links to Explicit and Implicit Self-esteem. Self and Identity, 9(2), 142-161.

Gregg, A. & Sedikides, C. (2010). Narcissistic Fragility: Rethinking Its Links to Explicit and Implicit Self-esteem, Self and Identity, 9:2, 142-161

Eastwick, P. W., Eagly, A. H., Finkel, E. J., & Johnson, S. E. (2011). Implicit and explicit preferences for physical attractiveness in a romantic partner: A double dissociation in predictive validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 993-1011.

Lili Wu, Huajian Cai, Ruolei Gu, Yu L L Luo, Jianxin Zhang, Jing Yang, . . . Lei Ding. (n.d.). Neural manifestations of implicit self-esteem: An ERP study. PLoS ONE, 9(7), E101837.

Pirutinsky, Siev, & Rosmarin. (2015). Scrupulosity and implicit and explicit beliefs about God. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 6, 33-38.

Obasi, E.M., Cavanagh, L., Pittman, D.M., & Brooks, J.J. (2016). Effects of evaluative context in implicit cognitions associated with alcohol and violent behaviors. Addictive Behaviors Reports 3 (2016) 48–55.

Pirutinsky, S., Carp, S., & Rosmarin, D. (2017). A Paradigm to Assess Implicit Attitudes towards God: The Positive/Negative God Associations Task. Journal Of Religion & Health, 56(1), 305-319.

Britzman, K.J & Mehić-Parker, J. (2023). Understanding Electability: The Effects of Implicit and Explicit Sexism on Candidate Perceptions. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy. (in press)

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