Electrophysiological Activity Generated During the Implicit Association Test: A Study Using Event-Related Potentials

O'Toole, Catriona; Barnes‐Holmes, Dermot

doi:10.1007/bf03395659

Cited by 13 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…On congruent blocks, ERP amplitudes were more positive in frontal, occipital and parietal regions at early intervals compared to incongruent blocks, which is consistent with past findings employing similar designs (Banfield et al, 2006; Barnes-Holmes et al, 2008; O'Toole and Barnes-Holmes, 2009; Coates, 2011; Williams and Themanson, 2011). The differences found here were at earlier time intervals then the aforementioned studies, however, which could have been due to discrepancies in how trials were paced in the respective studies or the use of feedback in the IAT.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Nevertheless, findings indicate that ERPs are sensitive to IAT task conditions. O'Toole and Barnes-Holmes (2009) recorded ERPs during an IAT and found that congruent trials elicited significantly more positive ERPs in comparison with incongruent trials in the 300–600 ms latency range at parietal and central sites. Assessing ERPs along the midline only, Williams and Themanson (2011) recorded EEG activity while individuals completed a Gay-Straight IAT (Gay and Straight relationships were indicated by pictures, while good and bad attributes were indicated by words).…”

Section: Temporal and Spatial Neural Contributions To The Iatmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Identifying temporal and causal contributions of neural processes underlying the Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Forbes¹,

Cameron²,

Grafman³

et al. 2012

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a popular behavioral measure that assesses the associative strength between outgroup members and stereotypical and counterstereotypical traits. Less is known, however, about the degree to which the IAT reflects automatic processing. Two studies examined automatic processing contributions to a gender-IAT using a data driven, social neuroscience approach. Performance on congruent (e.g., categorizing male names with synonyms of strength) and incongruent (e.g., categorizing female names with synonyms of strength) IAT blocks were separately analyzed using EEG (event-related potentials, or ERPs, and coherence; Study 1) and lesion (Study 2) methodologies. Compared to incongruent blocks, performance on congruent IAT blocks was associated with more positive ERPs that manifested in frontal and occipital regions at automatic processing speeds, occipital regions at more controlled processing speeds and was compromised by volume loss in the anterior temporal lobe (ATL), insula and medial PFC. Performance on incongruent blocks was associated with volume loss in supplementary motor areas, cingulate gyrus and a region in medial PFC similar to that found for congruent blocks. Greater coherence was found between frontal and occipital regions to the extent individuals exhibited more bias. This suggests there are separable neural contributions to congruent and incongruent blocks of the IAT but there is also a surprising amount of overlap. Given the temporal and regional neural distinctions, these results provide converging evidence that stereotypic associative strength assessed by the IAT indexes automatic processing to a degree.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Temporal and Spatial Neural Contributions To The Iatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying temporal and causal contributions of neural processes underlying the Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Forbes¹,

Cameron²,

Grafman³

et al. 2012

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…2). Similarly, earlier IAT studies in healthy subjects also reported larger LPP amplitudes in congruent trails (Hurtado et al, 2009;O'Toole and Barnes-Holmes, 2009;Williams and Themanson, 2011), which was interpreted as stronger emotional activation in congruent than incongruent trials. The LPP enhancement in microstate 8 in controls (in contrast to patients) might therefore be indicative of enhanced emotional processing during this timeframe.…”

Section: Neurophysiology Of Implicit Alcohol Associations In Audsupporting

confidence: 59%

The Neurophysiology of Implicit Alcohol Associations in Recently Abstinent Patients With Alcohol Use Disorder: An Event‐Related Potential Study Considering Gender Effects

Tschuemperlin

Batschelet

Moggi

et al. 2020

Alcoholism Clin & Exp Res

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Background: Neuroscientific models of alcohol use disorders (AUDs) postulate an imbalance between automatic, implicit, and controlled (conscious) processes. Implicit associations towards alcohol indicate the automatically attributed appeal of alcohol-related stimuli. First, behavioral studies indicate that negative alcohol associations are less pronounced in patients compared to controls, but potential neurophysiological differences remain unexplored. This study investigates neurophysiological correlates of implicit alcohol associations in recently abstinent patients with AUD for the first time, including possible gender effects. Methods: A total of 62 patients (40 males and 22 females) and 21 controls performed an alcohol valence Implicit Association Test, combining alcohol-related pictures with positive (incongruent condition) or negative (congruent condition) words, while brain activity was recorded using 64-channel electroencephalography. Event-related potentials (ERPs) for alcohol-negative and alcohol-positive trials were computed. Microstate analyses investigated the effects of group (patients, controls) and condition (incongruent, congruent); furthermore, possible gender effects in patients were analyzed. Significant effects were localized with standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic topography analysis. Results: Although no behavioral group differences were found, ERPs of patients and controls were characterized by distinct microstates from 320 ms onwards. ERPs between conditions differed only in patients with higher signal strength during incongruent trials. Around 600 ms, controls displayed higher signal strength than patients. A gender effect mirrored this pattern with enhanced signal strength in females as opposed to male patients. Around 690 ms, a group-by-valence interaction indicated enhanced signal strength in congruent compared to incongruent trials, which was more pronounced in controls. Conclusions: For patients with AUD, the pattern, timing, and source localization of effects suggest greater effort regarding semantic and self-relevant integration around 400 ms during incongruent trials and attenuated emotional processing during the late positive potential timeframe. Interestingly, this emotional attenuation seemed reduced in female patients, thus corroborating the importance of gendersensitive research and potential treatment of AUD.

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“…The time course of the ERP we observed in our task is generally similar to that found in previous studies investigating IAT paradigms by using ingroup/outgroup face stimuli (Hurtado et al, 2009) as well as homo-and heterosexual couple images (Williams & Themanson, 2011), particularly in terms of the presence of robust congruent/incongruent differences in a late time window. The results relating to early ERP differences are more variable (Ibáñez et al, 2010;O'Tolle & Barnes-Holmes, 2009). For example, one study has reported differences as early as 170 ms post-stimulusonset that were likely due to the discrimination of configuration aspects of the stimuli (ingroup/outgroup faces and valence) used in this study (Ibáñez et al, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Tracking the implicit self using event-related potentials

Egenolf

Stein

Koenig

et al. 2013

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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Negative biases in implicit self-evaluation are thought to be detrimental to subjective well-being and have been linked to various psychological disorders, including depression. An understanding of the neural processes underlying implicit self-evaluation in healthy subjects could provide a basis for the investigation of negative biases in depressed patients, the development of differential psychotherapeutic interventions, and the estimation of relapse risk in remitted patients. We thus studied the brain processes linked to implicit self-evaluation in 25 healthy subjects using event-related potential (ERP) recording during a self-relevant Implicit Association Test (sIAT). Consistent with a positive implicit self-evaluation in healthy subjects, they responded significantly faster to the congruent (self-positive mapping) than to the incongruent sIAT condition (self-negative mapping). Our main finding was a topographical ERP difference in a time window between 600 and 700 ms, whereas no significant differences between congruent and incongruent conditions were observed in earlier time windows. This suggests that biases in implicit self-evaluation are reflected only indirectly, in the additional recruitment of control processes needed to override the positive implicit self-evaluation of healthy subjects in the incongruent sIAT condition. Brain activations linked to these control processes can thus serve as an indirect measure for estimating biases in implicit self-evaluation. The sIAT paradigm, combined with ERP, could therefore permit the tracking of the neural processes underlying implicit self-evaluation in depressed patients during psychotherapy.

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Electrophysiological Activity Generated During the Implicit Association Test: A Study Using Event-Related Potentials

Abstract: The Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Cited by 13 publications

References 13 publications

Identifying temporal and causal contributions of neural processes underlying the Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Identifying temporal and causal contributions of neural processes underlying the Implicit Association Test (IAT)

The Neurophysiology of Implicit Alcohol Associations in Recently Abstinent Patients With Alcohol Use Disorder: An Event‐Related Potential Study Considering Gender Effects

Tracking the implicit self using event-related potentials

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