Implicit measures can be defined as outcomes of measurement procedures that are caused in an automatic manner by psychological attributes. To establish that a measurement outcome is an implicit measure, one should examine (a) whether the outcome is causally produced by the psychological attribute it was designed to measure, (b) the nature of the processes by which the attribute causes the outcome, and (c) whether these processes operate automatically. This normative analysis provides a heuristic framework for organizing past and future research on implicit measures. The authors illustrate the heuristic function of their framework by using it to review past research on the 2 implicit measures that are currently most popular: effects in implicit association tests and affective priming tasks.Keywords: implicit measures, automaticity, IAT, affective priming Most psychologists would argue that a full understanding of the behavior of an individual requires knowledge not only of the external situation in which the individual is present but also of the internal psychological attributes of the individual. Throughout the history of psychology, researchers have therefore attempted to measure interindividual differences in the psychological attributes of people (e.g., Anastasi, 1958;Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985;Mischel & Shoda, 1995). During the past decade, a major development in this research has been the introduction of so-called implicit measures. These measures were originally put forward mainly within the social psychology literature (e.g., Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995;Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) but have since then spread to various other subdisciplines of psychology, including differential psychology (e.g., Asendorpf, Banse, & Mücke, 2002), clinical psychology (e.g., Gemar, Segal, Sagrati, & Kennedy, 2001, consumer psychology (e.g., Maison, Greenwald, & Bruin, 2004), and health psychology (e.g., Wiers, van Woerden, Smulders, & de Jong, 2002).Despite the widespread use of implicit measures, the actual meaning of the term implicit measure is rarely defined. On the basis of the work of Borsboom (Borsboom, 2006;Borsboom, Mellenbergh, & van Heerden, 2004) and De Houwer (De Houwer, 2006;, we first provide a normative analysis of the concept "implicit measure." The analysis is normative in the sense that it stipulates the properties that an ideal implicit measure should have. As such, the analysis provides a heuristic framework for reviewing and evaluating existing research on implicit measures. By examining the extent to which a particular implicit measure exhibits these normative properties, one can clarify the way in which the measure is an implicit measure and highlight those issues on which further research is required. In the second part of this article, we perform this exercise with regard to the two types of implicit measures that are currently most popular: effects in implicit association tests (IATs;Greenwald et al., 1998) and affective priming tasks (Fazio et al., 1995). Before we present and ap...

The authors present a diffusion-model analysis of the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In Study 1, the IAT effect was decomposed into 3 dissociable components: Relative to the compatible phase, (a) ease and speed of information accumulation are lowered in the incompatible phase, (b) more cautious speed-accuracy settings are adopted, and (c) nondecision components of processing require more time. Studies 2 and 3 assessed the nature of interindividual differences in these components. Construct-specific variance in the IAT relating to the construct to be measured (such as implicit attitudes) was concentrated in the compatibility effect on information accumulation (Studies 2 and 3), whereas systematic method variance in the IAT was mapped on differential speed-accuracy settings (Study 3). Implications of these dissociations for process theories of the IAT and for applications are discussed.

The goal of the present research was to investigate the role of three central-executive functions-switching of mental sets, inhibition of prepotent responses, and simultaneous storage and processing (i.e., working-memory capacity)-in accounting for method variance in the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In two studies, several IATs with unrelated contents were administered along with a battery of central-executive tasks, with multiple tasks tapping each of the above executive functions. Method variance was found to be related to the switching factor, but not to the inhibition factor. There was also evidence for a small independent contribution of the working-memory capacity factor. The findings constrain process accounts of the IAT, lending support to an account in terms of task-set switching, and they have consequences for applications.

Recoding processes can influence the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) in a way that impedes an unequivocal interpretation of the resulting compatibility effects. We present a modified version of the IAT that aims to eliminate recoding, the IAT-RF (short for "IAT-recoding free"). In the IAT-RF, compatible and incompatible assignments of categories to responses switch randomly between trials within a single experimental block. Abandoning an extended sequence of consistent category-response mappings undermines recoding processes in the IAT-RF. Two experiments reveal that the IAT-RF is capable of assessing compatibility effects between the nominally defined categories of the task and effectively prevents recoding. By enforcing a processing of the stimuli in terms of their task-relevant category membership, the IAT-RF eliminates the confounding of compatibility effects with task switch costs and becomes immune against biased selections of stimuli.

In the affective-priming paradigm, target stimuli are preceded by evaluatively polarized prime stimuli and then are to be classified as either good or bad as fast as possible. The typical and robust finding is assimilation: Primes facilitate the processing of evaluatively consistent targets relative to evaluatively inconsistent targets. Nevertheless, contrast effects have repeatedly been observed. The authors propose a new psychophysical account of normal (assimilative) and reversed (contrastive) priming effects and test new predictions derived from it in 5 studies: In Studies 1 and 2, the authors' account is shown to provide a better explanation of contrastive effects in a priming paradigm with two primes than the traditional attentional account does. Furthermore, as predicted by the new account, contrast effects emerge at an intermediate stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA, Study 3) and even with short SOAs when target onset takes participants by surprise (Study 4). Finally, the use of extremely valenced primes triggers corrective efforts (Study 5) as predicted. Implications for priming measures of evaluative associations are discussed.

The present paper introduces a new variant of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998 ) called the Single Block IAT (SB-IAT). By eliminating the IAT’s block structure, the SB-IAT is argued to solve the structural problem of recoding in the IAT and accordingly, its contamination by method-specific variance. In Study 1, a flower-insect SB-IAT, a task-switching ability SB-IAT, and a geometry SB-IAT showed reduced, but still significant effects. Zero correlations between the three SB-IATs indicated a substantially reduced amount of method-specific variance. Study 2 examined the SB-IAT’s psychometric properties. A political attitude SB-IAT showed acceptable reliability, discriminated between liberal and conservative voters, and correlated with the corresponding attitude rating in the same magnitude as the standard IAT. Results indicate that the SB-IAT minimizes method-specific variance while retaining the IAT’s satisfying psychometric properties. The discussion focuses on potentials and constraints of this newly developed measure.

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