The Implicit Association Test Measuring Individual Differences in Implicit Cognition: The Implicit Association Test Anthony G. Greenwald, Debbie E. McGhee, and Jordan L. K. Schwartz JPSP, 1998

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/

Basic Method: You have 3 training blocks, and 2 critical blocks of trials: 1)Congruent block (if you are a Democrat)where you press one button (E) for both a GOOD evaluation and also a certain personality attribute, like Democrat. You press another button (I) for a BAD evaluation and also for another attribute, Republican. 2)Incongruent block in which GOOD goes with Republican and BAD with Democrat.

Congruent for Democrats

Congruent for Republicans

The Key Measurement: RT You, if a Democrat, are expected to be faster on congruent block because you must pause to equate GOOD with Republican… Of course, if you are a Republican, the meanings of congruent and incongruent are reversed. This test should reveal your true attitudes, and there is a great deal of support. Go to paper to show results.

This was extended into a lie detector… How to Accurately Detect Autobiographical Events Giuseppe Sartori,1 Sara Agosta,1 Cristina Zogmaister,2 Santo Davide Ferrara,3 and Umberto Castiello1 1Psychology Department, 2Developmental and Social Psychology Department, and 3Environmental Medicine and Public Health Department, University of Padua Psychological Science 2008

Go to Sartori paper for Methods, results

Verschuere et al. show that test is beatable… …by learning to increase RT to congruent associations—slowing down. Agosta & Sartori come back and say “we can catch you doing this.” So we got into the act: Hu, Rosenfeld & Bodenhausen : Psych Science, in press. Trained Ps to speed up incongruent trials:

Figure 1: