A Thousand Words Are Worth More Than a Picture? The Effects of Stimulus Modality on the Implicit Association Test

Abstract

Implicit Association Tests (IATs) employing pictures as target stimuli usually yield smaller scores than those with verbal target stimuli, suggesting weaker attitudes in the former compared to the latter case. As the attribute dimension of attitude IATs is typically represented by words, we hypothesized the target modality effect to be actually due to a modality match between targets and attributes. We manipulated stimulus modality independently for targets and attributes and confirmed our assumption in two attitude IATs (Experiment 1: flower/insect, Experiment 2: old/young): Employing verbal attributes, IAT scores were smaller for pictorial compared to verbal targets. However, the target modality effect disappeared or was even reversed if pictures were employed as attributes. Applying the ReAL model revealed that this modality match effect is mediated by recoding processes. Importantly, evaluative associations remained unaffected by modality match and reflected equal or even stronger preferences for pictorial compared to verbal targets.