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

Abstract

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.

Clocking the social mind by identifying mental processes in the IAT with electrical neuroimaging

“…The second was found in a later mental process, starting around 450 ms after stimulus onset (microstate 6). Thus, in line with previous EEG studies, we found differences between the two IAT conditions in both the first (18)(19)(20)(21) and second half (18,19,(22)(23)(24) of task execution. Adding to previous research, we demonstrated that these differences were due to a longer duration of the same mental Congruent 0 88 88 132 158 224 224 252 252 442 442 612 612 742 742 868 Incongruent 0 88 88 132 156 226 226 260 260 446 446 664 664 826 826 954 processes in the incongruent condition.…”

“…[18][19][20][21] and at late time periods (in the second half of task execution; refs. 18, 19, and 22-24).…”

Neural processing of gendered information is more robustly associated with mothers’ gendered communication with children than mothers’ implicit and explicit gender stereotypes

“…The remaining trials were averaged in a grand average waveform, but also separately for each condition (masculine toy-congruent, masculine toy-incongruent, feminine toy-congruent, feminine toy-incongruent). Following Forbes et al (2012) average waveforms included both correct and incorrect trials, because the improved scoring algorithm to compute a participant's behavioral stereotype score also included error trials. In addition, we did not exclude any trials on the basis of RTs, because all RTs where within an acceptable range (i.e., 400-1100 ms; see Greenwald et al, 2003).…”

Tracking the implicit self using event-related potentials

“…These studies have mainly focused on activation differences between congruent and incongruent IAT conditions. ERP studies have commonly identified differences in both late (Coates & Campbell, 2010;Hurtado, et al, 2009;Williams & Themanson, 2011) and, to a lesser degree, early (Coates & Campbell, 2010;Forbes et al, 2012;Ibáñez et al, 2010) ERP components as a function of IAT condition. fMRI studies have emphasized an important role of activations in the dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, as well as in the anterior cingulate cortex, in the control processes that are needed to override the implicit associations in order to correctly perform the IAT on incongruent trials (Chee et al, 2000;Knutson et al, 2007;Luo et al, 2006).…”