1. Jamie Cummins Bryan Roche Aoife Cartwright Maynooth University
The Function Acquisition Speed Test: A measure of stimulus relatedness?
Jamie Cummins
Bryan Roche
Aoife Cartwright
Maynooth University

2. Implicit Tests Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998)
Assumes shorter RTs for pairing words that are congruous to ‘mental associations’, and that RT differences are an index of mental association strength

3. Implicit Association Test (IAT)

4. Conceptual & procedural issues with IAT
Functional definition of this remains elusive (Hughes, Barnes-Holmes & DeHouwer, 2011)
Issues with commensuration of time penalty for erroneous responses and accuracy metric
Function Acquisition Speed Test (FAST) as a behavior-analytic alternative?

5. FAST: Stimulus Presentation
Salt

6. IAT vs. FAST IAT FAST Purported to measure: Mental associations
Stimulus relatedness/
acquisition of shared function
Feedback:
Incorrect responses only
Feedback on all trials
Procedure:
7 different blocks (16 or 32 trials per block); scoring on fourth and seventh block only
2 blocks – 50 trials per block (can vary across procedural types);
one consistent,
one inconsistent
Response window:
No explicit response window, responses truncated post-hoc
3s response window, then ‘incorrect’ feedback given
Scoring:
Rigid; reaction times and post-hoc transformation via d-score
Multiple possible methods; slope of regression line fitted to fluency curve

7. Sample fluency:

8. FAST Effect: Positive score = more fluent on consistent block;
Fluency consistent block – fluency inconsistent block
= FAST Effect
Positive score = more fluent on consistent block;
negative score = more fluent on inconsistent block

9. Function Acquisition Speed Test
Although format differs, the core processes measured by the FAST are identical to other implicit tests (e.g. IAT) (Gavin et al., 2008; Roche et al., 2005)
Nature of the relationship between the paired stimuli should reveal information about learning history with stimuli
this has not been experimentally verified

10. Little research has focused on systematic manipulation of stimulus relatedness & outcomes on implicit tests
Some studies (e.g. O’Reilly et al., 2012) have shown effects using arbitrary, trained stimulus relations
This study sought to explore effects of systematic stimulus relatedness manipulation on subsequent implicit test effects

11. Method 127 participants; after MTS fails N = 89
52 females, 37 males; mean age = / years
5 arbitrary conditions:
No Training (n = 12)
One Session (n = 23)
Two Sessions (n = 13)
3 MTSs in 1 sitting (n = 10)
3 MTSs in 3 sittings (n = 14)
1 real word condition (n = 17) – used South Florida Free Association Norms Index

12. Matching-to-sample
Linear training and testing phases, each with block length of 32 trials
Training: A1-B1, B1-C1, A2-B2, and B2-C2
Test: A1-C1 and A2-C2
Looping for blocks that did not reach criterion (31 out of 32 correct)
Feedback provided in training phase only

13. Real words
South Florida Free Association Norms Index (Nelson, McEvoy, & Schreiber, 1998)
E.g., pepper-salt (r = .695; .701) / king- queen (r = .772; .73) stimuli

14. FAST: Stimulus Presentation
Salt

15. FAST: Feedback
CORRECT OR
WRONG

16. Results All data were normally distributed
One-way ANOVA found significant changes across conditions; F(5, 83) = 2.335, p=.049; partial eta squared = .123.
Linear polynomial contrast; F(1, 83) = , p=.0003; ηp2 =

17. Results
* = p < .05 at one-tailed level
N = 92

18. Results
Two-way mixed between-within groups ANOVA run using BLOCK (i.e., consistent or inconsistent) X TRAINING (i.e., relatedness condition)
Significant interaction effect between block and training, F(1, 83) = 6.12, p = .049; ηp2 =

19. Results

20. Participant 59 (No training)
Participant 33 (Real Words)

21. What do these data mean?
Greater degree of stimulus relatedness leads to commensurate changes in FAST effects
Consistent block increases, which inconsistent block seems to begin to decrease at high levels of relatedness
Evidence for proof of principle of the FAST’s conceptual underpinnings

22. What do these data mean?
For the real word condition, S- control was purely contextual (e.g., ‘salt’ is not NOT related to ‘queen’)
Expect inconsistent to decrease further when contrast category is under explicit S- control?

23. Future research
Examine differential effects of varying stimulus control in training to mimic possible naturalistic learning processes
Use further arbitrary relations to identify potential ceiling effects & when they occur
Confirm findings in context of other implicit tests, such as the IAT and IRAP

24. Future research
Ultimately, experimental studies such as this will (and ought to) provide a bedrock for making empirically-validated inferences about what precisely implicit psychological test effects tell us.

25. Thank you for listening!
Any questions?
Jamie Cummins Aoife Cartwright
Maynooth University Maynooth University
Bryan Roche
Maynooth University