Cognition Laboratory Experiments

John H. Krantz, Hanover College, krantzj@hanover.edu

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Hanover College
Psychology Department

Instructions for the
Implicit Association Test (IAT) Experiment

 

When you click on the link below, you will be presented with the experiment setup screen.  On this screen will be the variables you can set to define your condition.  Here is a list of the variables and their settings.  Not all variables will be visible all the time.  Only those variables appropriate to the stimulus and other settings will be shown.  So changing some values may alter what is shown on the setup screen.

Variable Settings
Condition The type of experiment.  Currently only an IAT comparing young and old faces to positive and negative words is possible (AGE).
Location of the Positive words Which hand will make the response for the positive words: Right or Left.
Order of Paring Positive with Young Will the same hand respond to both the positive and the young faces be first or second in order.
Number of Repetitions per Stimulus Number of times each stimulus will be shown in each block it is shown.
Number of Items The number of items that will be shown in the sequence.  Limits depend upon the maximum number of items available.  If the number of items is less than the maximum possible for that stimulus set, a random collection of the set will be used in the experiment.
Font Size  of the stimulus word. (from 10 to 64 point)

After you have finished making your settings, press the Done button at the bottom of the screen.  The IAT experiment screen will then be presented. 

The experiment is in 5 blocks of trials. 

Block 1: Training Words only presented,  Respond to the positive and negative words with the hand indicated in the instructions.
Block 2: Face Training 1 Same but for faces.
Block 3: Combined 1 Either a face or a word will be presented.  Respond with the hands trained in the first two blocks.
Block 4: Face Training 2 Reverse The hands used to respond to the old and young faces are now reversed.
Block 5: Combined 2 Reversed As in block 3 but the response hand for faces is now as trained in Block 4.

Press the space bar to begin the experiment. 

Next, the instruction screen for the block will be presented.  Put the first finger of your left hand over the "D" key and the first finger of your right hand over the "K" key.  The screen will tell you what stimulus type you will respond to with each hand.  Press the space bar to begin the block.  The stimuli will be presented until that block is done and then the next block's instructions will come up.  Read the instructions carefully.  Both speed of response and accuracy are important.

At the end of the experiment, your results will be presented.  The results will be the reaction time and accuracy for each stimulus time in each block.  You can also get your trial by trial results.  In the response part of the trial results, a null indicates that no selection was made.  Closing your results window(s) will take you back to the setup window so you can run another experiment.

Click here to start the experiment.

 

Acknowledgements:

The idea for developing an age based IAT, the word list used and the pictures used are from Becky Nixon and Alexis Rose of Hanover College.

The faces are provided courtesy of:

Minear, M. & Park, D. C. (2004). A lifespan database of adult facial stimuli. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 36(4), 630-633.