I had never completed a IAT test or heard of the IAT test prior to this class. I found several of the IAT categories interesting such as race, age, and religion. I choose the age test and found the test somewhat boring. The first task was to sort words and pictures of faces of both young and old people into two categories young and old. I found it interesting that the pictures of the faces were not a picture of the entire face, only the eye area and nose. I associated wrinkles and frown lines with the face of an old person and the lack of wrinkles and frown lines with the face of a young person.
I would like to know if there is a reason why pictures of entire faces were not shown and what if any affects showing the entire face would have on the results. The other tasks that followed were very similar, sorting words associated with good, bad, young, and old. I found the task that featured both a face and a word on one side of the screen to be somewhat confusing. I received several of the questions wrong. I don’t understand if the wrong markings were based on my previous responses to each face or word individually.
I felt kind of bad during the last tasks for associating the pictures of old people with bad word but wasn’t able to change my responses without being marked wrong. I was found to have a strong preference for young people compared to old people. At the end of the test there were several questions such as my age, race, and religion. I think my results were influenced by both my conscious and unconscious knowledge and previous experiences (schema). I thought all of the old people looked kind of mean in the pictures because of frown lines. I found the test interesting and would like to complete other IAT tests.
