TY - JOUR
T1 - Identifying temporal and causal contributions of neural processes underlying the Implicit Association Test (IAT)
AU - Forbes, Chad E.
AU - Cameron, Katherine A.
AU - Grafman, Jordan
AU - Barbey, Aron K.
AU - Solomon, Jeffrey
AU - Ritter, Walter
AU - Ruchkin, Daniel
PY - 2012/11/8
Y1 - 2012/11/8
N2 - 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, 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.
AB - 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, 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.
KW - Automaticity
KW - EEG Coherence
KW - Event-Related Brain Potentials
KW - Extra-Striate Visual Cortex
KW - Gender stereotypes
KW - Implicit Association Test
KW - Prefrontal Cortex
KW - Traumatic brain injuries
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84933674181&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00320
DO - 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00320
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84933674181
JO - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
JF - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
SN - 1662-5161
IS - NOVEMBER 2012
ER -