An implicit association test (IAT) measures differential association of 2 target concepts with an attribute. The 2 concepts appear in a 2-choice task (e.g., flower vs. insect names), and the attribute in a 2nd task (e.g., pleasant vs. unpleasant words for an evaluation attribute). When instructions oblige highly associated categories (e.g., flower + pleasant) to share a response key, performance is faster than when less associated categories (e.g., insect + pleasant) share a key. This performance difference implicitly measures differential association of the 2 concepts with the attribute. In 3 experiments, the IAT was sensitive to (a) near-universal evaluative differences (e.g., flower vs. insect), (b) expected individual differences in evaluative associations (Japanese + pleasant vs. Korean + pleasant for Japanese vs. Korean subjects), and (c) consciously disavowed evaluative differences (Black + pleasant vs. White + pleasant for self-described unprejudiced White subjects).

http://faculty.fortlewis.edu/burke_b/Senior/BLINK%20replication/IAT.pdf

Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test.

https://www.cns.nyu.edu/~msl/courses/2223/Readings/Rosch-CogPsych1976.pdf

Basic objects in natural categories

In this article we present a standardized set of 260 pictures for use in experiments investigating differences and similarities in the processing of pictures and words. The pictures are black-and-white line drawings executed according to a set of rules that provide consistency of pictorial representation. The pictures have been standardized on four variables of central relevance to memory and cognitive processing: name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. The intercorrelations among the four measures were low, suggesting that they are indices of different attributes of the pictures. The concepts were selected to provide exemplars from several widely studied semantic categories. Sources of naming variance, and mean familiarity and complexity of the exemplars, differed significantly across the set of categories investigated. The potential significance of each of the normative variables to a number of semantic and episodic memory tasks is discussed.

/pdf/a-standardized-set-of-260-pictures-norms-for-name-agreement-538pmnf0w6.pdf

A standardized set of 260 pictures: Norms for name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity.

Recent changes in prctheorclical orientation toward problems of human memory have brought with them a concern with retrieval processes, and a number of early versions of theories of retrieval have been constructed. This paper describes and evaluates explanations offered by these theories to account for the effect of extralist cuing, facilitation of recall of list items by nonlist items. Experiments designed to test the currently most popular theory of retrieval, the generation-recognition theory, yielded results incompatible not only with generation-recognition models, but most other theories as well: under certain conditions subjects consistently failed to recognize many recallable list words. Several tentative explanations of this phenomenon of recognition failure were subsumed under the encoding specificity principle according to which the memory trace of an event and hence the properties of effective retrieval cue are determined by the specific encoding operations performed by the system on the input stimuli.

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/rev/80/5/352.pdf

Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory.

Cognitive Representations of Semantic Categories.

Category norms of verbal items in 56 categories A replication and extension of the Connecticut category norms

Handbook of semantic word norms

In an incidental learning paradigm, recall and recognition memory were shown to be significantly better for words rated on pleasantness than on any of the other six semantic dimensions (concreteness, imagery, categorizability, meaningfulness, familiarity, and number of attributes) recently used for scaling of 2,854 words by Toglia and Battig (1978). Pleasantness ratings are also relatively uncorrelated with ratings on these other six dimensions, and the pattern of memory differences between these seven dimensions corresponds closely to differences in dimensional distinctiveness, as indexed by the average correlation of each dimension with the other six dimensions as reported by Toglia and Battig (1978). Word subsets with high and low mean ratings on all seven dimensions showed comparable dimensional differences in memory, but high words were both recalled and recognized better than were low words.

/pdf/effects-of-different-kinds-of-semantic-processing-on-memory-2xqj1m93h6.pdf

William F. Battig

Papers

Category norms of verbal items in 56 categories A replication and extension of the Connecticut category norms

Handbook of semantic word norms

Effects of different kinds of semantic processing on memory for words.

Are the important “individual differences” between or within individuals?☆

Relationships among higher order organizational measures and free recall