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Neural correlates of the implicit association test: evidence for semantic and emotional processing.

ABSTRACT: The implicit association test (IAT) has been widely used in social cognitive research over the past decade. Controversies have arisen over what cognitive processes are being tapped into using this task. While most models use behavioral (RT) results to support their claims, little research has examined neurocognitive correlates of these behavioral measures. The present study measured event-related brain potentials (ERPs) of participants while completing a gay-straight IAT in order to further understand the processes involved in a typical group bias IAT. Results indicated significantly smaller N400 amplitudes and significantly larger LPP amplitudes for compatible trials than for incompatible trials, suggesting that both the semantic and emotional congruence of stimuli paired together in an IAT trial contribute to the typical RT differences found, while no differences were present for earlier ERP components including the N2. These findings are discussed with respect to early and late processing in group bias IATs.

SUBMITTER: Williams JK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3150856 | biostudies-other | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Neural correlates of the implicit association test: evidence for semantic and emotional processing.

Williams John K JK Themanson Jason R JR

Social cognitive and affective neuroscience 20100702 4

The implicit association test (IAT) has been widely used in social cognitive research over the past decade. Controversies have arisen over what cognitive processes are being tapped into using this task. While most models use behavioral (RT) results to support their claims, little research has examined neurocognitive correlates of these behavioral measures. The present study measured event-related brain potentials (ERPs) of participants while completing a gay-straight IAT in order to further unde ...[more]

PMID: 20601422

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Project description:The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a reaction time based categorization task that measures the differential associative strength between bipolar targets and evaluative attribute concepts as an approach to indexing implicit beliefs or biases. An open question exists as to what exactly the IAT measures, and here EEG (Electroencephalography) has been used to investigate the time course of ERPs (Event-related Potential) indices and implicated brain regions in the IAT. IAT-EEG research identifies a number of early (250-450 ms) negative ERPs indexing early-(pre-response) processing stages of the IAT. ERP activity in this time range is known to index processes related to cognitive control and semantic processing. A central focus of these efforts has been to use IAT-ERPs to delineate the implicit and explicit factors contributing to measured IAT effects. Increasing evidence indicates that cognitive control (and related top-down modulation of attention/perceptual processing) may be components in the effective measurement of IAT effects, as factors such as physical setting or task instruction can change an IAT measurement. In this study we further implicate the role of proactive cognitive control and top-down modulation of attention/perceptual processing in the IAT-EEG. We find statistically significant relationships between D-score (a reaction-time based measure of the IAT-effect) and early ERP-time windows, indicating where more rapid word categorizations driving the IAT effect are present, they are at least partly explainable by neural activity not significantly correlated with the IAT measurement itself. Using LORETA, we identify a number of brain regions driving these ERP-IAT relationships notably involving left-temporal, insular, cingulate, medial frontal and parietal cortex in time regions corresponding to the N2- and P3-related activity. The identified brain regions involved with reduced reaction times on congruent blocks coincide with those of previous studies.

Dataset Information

Neural correlates of the implicit association test: evidence for semantic and emotional processing.

Publications

Neural correlates of the implicit association test: evidence for semantic and emotional processing.

Similar Datasets

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