![]() ![]() congruent stimuli, a reaction time difference known as the “IAT effect.” For example, participants usually take longer to associate ingroup words with negative attributes (incongruent condition) than with positive attributes (congruent condition), indicating that they hold positive attitudes toward their ingroup. It is based on the idea that participants are slower at associating incongruent vs. The IAT measures implicit attitudes or gut-level evaluations, such as attitudes about different social groups. One of the most popular of these tests is the implicit association test (IAT refs. These response time differences provide unique information that predicts behavior, judgments, physiological responses, and pathology ( 6, 7). This experimental approach has led to the development of dozens of psychological tests (e.g., Stroop tasks, priming tasks, implicit association tests) that rely on response time differences to assess implicit, unconscious processes ( 3– 5). More broadly, our data analysis approach illustrates the potential of electrical neuroimaging to illuminate the temporal organization of mental processes involved in social cognition.įrom the beginning of psychological research, reaction times have been used to probe the nature of mental processes, an approach known as mental chronometry ( 1, 2). ![]() ![]() These results advance understanding of the neural mechanics of response time differences in the IAT: They speak against theories that explain the IAT effect as due to additional processes in the incongruent condition and speak in favor of theories that assume a longer duration of specific processes in the incongruent condition. We also found that the latter process contributed to individual differences in implicit bias. Crucially, all seven processes occurred in the same temporal sequence in both conditions, but participants needed more time to perform one early occurring process (perceptual processing) and one late occurring process (implementing cognitive control to select the motor response) in the incongruent compared with the congruent condition. From stimulus presentation until response production, we identified seven processes. Here, we addressed this previously insoluble issue by assessing the spatiotemporal evolution of brain electrical activity in 83 participants. Why do people take longer to associate the word “love” with outgroup words (incongruent condition) than with ingroup words (congruent condition)? Despite the widespread use of the implicit association test (IAT), it has remained unclear whether this IAT effect is due to additional mental processes in the incongruent condition, or due to longer duration of the same processes. ![]()
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