Implicit Association Test

"Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for Babe Ruth compared to Barry Bonds."... and I dislike them Yanks and think the Babe was a bigot.

well, Ted Williams was better than either of them.

yes... and DiMaggio, and Satchel Paige, and Martin Dihigo...

Mine came out a slight preference for Babe Ruth even though I don't follow or care about baseball. I know they say they've corrected it for the order in which the players were shown, but it seems like all of my mistakes were based on the reversing of the order I'd already programmed my fingers to respond in. I'm sure there's more to it than that, it just seems strange.

i'm guessing that there's some kind of fudge factor used to compensate for whatever effect there is from the randomly chosen order in which the items appear, but regardless, a result of a slight preference might be more iffy than a moderate/strong preference.

back in the day, i was a *huge* fan but not too keen on stats, so i had to guess on most of the objective questions it asks you afterwards.

fb, let's not forget Sadaharu Oh. he belongs in the pantheon somewhere.

Oh, I forgot him!

Is it just me or was that test a load of arse ?

H, did you read the FAQ, etc? i only skimmed it. i gathered from Scientific American that one of the authors is currently in demand for diversity training at mega corporations. that has the taint of pop psychology, but it's an ongoing project at Harvard, which would seem to confer legitimacy.

Well there was some blurb about a couple of baseball guys, one of whom I'd never heard of, then there were some pictures of things and people that I was supposed to do something with, correct ?
Supposed to put them into one of two categories allegedly.
There wasn't a button for "irrelevant picture" or "no category" or "who the hell is that ?" so none of it made any sense to me.

I've just run it again.
Now got a pic of a black guy and the two baseball names at the top.
What on Earth has this dude got to do with baseball players ?
I don't recognise him and as such can't put him into either "category" even by using the most tenuous of inferences. Not that there are any categories. Just two names neither of which are relevant.

The entire thing seems utterly disconnected, contrived and frankly absurd.
It makes no sense.
If it's a test then it needs serious work.
Serious work.

ah, see what you mean, H. if it had been pictures of two famous footballers, one black, the other white, it may have made more sense to you.

i'm pretty sure the idea of the test is that subconsciously a person might associate white people with positive traits, and black people with negative traits, or vice versa. then, when asked to associate a positive or negative quality with an image of a white or black person, the time it takes to respond correctly would vary according to the subcosnsious association, if any.

Well actually it wouldn't have made the slightest difference if it were footballers. I have no idea who any of those are either.
Aside from that, the main problem I had with it is that you can't chose the "wrong" thing.
A wee red cross comes up and that's it.
You're not allowed to say "screw you test, I want that one !"
So what's the point of it ?
I can't see how it can be an associateive test if you can't associate the pics with anything other than what it wants you to associate them with.
Makes no sense.

I did get further through it by just tapping the keys alternately as fast as I could, a-la Hyper Sports arcade game in the '80s, but when the same things kept on coming around again and again after cycling through the words then pics etc... several times I got completely hacked off with the entire thing and closed it down.

Was one of those guys black and the other white ?
I couldn't tell from the pics.

yes, they were. if you couldn't distinguish their race, then the result wouldn't have been all that meaningful even if the test didn't befuddle you. it would have been clearer if they used color photos, but there aren't any color photos of Ruth that i'm aware of.

as to your getting kicked out, perhaps that was a feature intended to prevent a person from sabotaging the results. all in all, i commend you for making a valiant effort for the advancement of science.

You're very kind.

maybe i'll think up an award, and you can be the first recipient. something along the line of the darwin awards, but in the positive sense. :wink: