Exercise effects in the Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Greenwald, McGhee and Schwarz (1998a) assume that individual differences in implicit cognition can be measured by means of the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The IAT has been criticised by some authors contenting that the IAT effect does not reflect implicit cognition alone but is also susceptible to other influences, e.g. "task-switch costs". A modified version of the IAT is suggested here which allows testing the influence of exercise effects and task-switch effects. In two experiments participants completed a modified version of the IAT. In the first study we used the domain of ?aggression?, and in the second study we used the "self concept" domain to measure implicit attitudes. The results confirm the hypothesis, that the IAT effect can not be traced back to implicit attitudes alone. It is shown that the IAT effect is influenced by simple exercise effects but not so much by task switch-costs.