Implicit cognition

Abstract: Behavioral scientists have long sought measures of important psychological constructs that avoid response biases and other problems associated with direct reports. Recently, a large number of such indirect, or “implicit,” measures have emerged. We review research that has utilized these measures across several domains, including attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes, and discuss their predictive validity, their interrelations, and the mechanisms presumably underlying their operation. Special attention is devoted to various priming measures and the Implicit Association Test, largely due to their prevalence in the literature. We also attempt to clarify several unresolved theoretical and empirical issues concerning implicit measures, including the nature of the underlying constructs they purport to measure, the conditions under which they are most likely to relate to explicit measures, the kinds of behavior each measure is likely to predict, their sensitivity to context, and the construct's potential for c...

Abstract: I examine the phenomenon of implicit learning, the process by which knowledge about the ralegoverned complexities of the stimulus environment is acquired independently of conscious attempts to do so. Our research with the two, seemingly disparate experimental paradigms of synthetic grammar learning and probability learning is reviewed and integrated with other approaches to the general problem of unconscious cognition. The conclusions reached are as follows: (a) Implicit learning produces a tacit knowledge base that is abstract and representative of the structure of the environment; (b) such knowledge is optimally acquired independently of conscious efforts to learn; and (c) it can be used implicitly to solve problems and make accurate decisions about novel stimulus circumstances. Various epistemological issues and related prob1 lems such as intuition, neuroclinical disorders of learning and memory, and the relationship of evolutionary processes to cognitive science are also discussed. Some two decades ago the term implicit learning was first used to characterize how one develops intuitive knowledge about the underlying structure of a complex stimulus environment (Reber, 1965, 1967). In those early writings, I argued that implicit learning is characterized by two critical features: (a) It is an unconscious process and (b) it yields abstract knowledge. Implicit knowledge results from the induction of an abstract representation of the structure that the stimulus environment displays, and this knowledge is acquired in the absence of conscious, reflective strategies to learn. Since then, the evidence in support of this theory has been abundant, and many of the details of the process have been sharpened. This article is an overview of this evidence and an attempt to extend the general concepts to provide some insight into a variety of related processes such as arriving at intuitive judgments, complex decision making, and, in a broad sense, learning about the complex covariations among events that characterize the environment. Put simply, this is an article about learning. It seems curious, given the pattern of psychological investigation of the middle decades of this century, that the topic of learning should be so poorly represented in the contemporary literature in cognitive psychology. The energies of cognitive scientists have been invested largely in the analysis and modeling of existing knowledge rather than in investigations of how it was acquired. For example, in an important recent article on the general topic of unconscious memorial systems, Schacter (1987) never came to grips with the distinction between implicit learning and implicit memory. The latter, the focus of his review, was dealt with historically, characterized, out

Abstract: A central theme in recent research on attitudes is the distinction between deliberate, "explicit" attitudes and automatic, "implicit" attitudes. The present article provides an integrative review of the available evidence on implicit and explicit attitude change that is guided by a distinction between associative and propositional processes. Whereas associative processes are characterized by mere activation independent of subjective truth or falsity, propositional reasoning is concerned with the validation of evaluations and beliefs. The proposed associative-propositional evaluation (APE) model makes specific assumptions about the mutual interplay of the 2 processes, implying several mechanisms that lead to symmetric or asymmetric changes in implicit and explicit attitudes. The model integrates a broad range of empirical evidence and implies several new predictions for implicit and explicit attitude change.

Abstract: Implicit biases involve associations outside conscious awareness that lead to a negative evaluation of a person on the basis of irrelevant characteristics such as race or gender. This review examines the evidence that healthcare professionals display implicit biases towards patients. PubMed, PsychINFO, PsychARTICLE and CINAHL were searched for peer-reviewed articles published between 1st March 2003 and 31st March 2013. Two reviewers assessed the eligibility of the identified papers based on precise content and quality criteria. The references of eligible papers were examined to identify further eligible studies. Forty two articles were identified as eligible. Seventeen used an implicit measure (Implicit Association Test in fifteen and subliminal priming in two), to test the biases of healthcare professionals. Twenty five articles employed a between-subjects design, using vignettes to examine the influence of patient characteristics on healthcare professionals’ attitudes, diagnoses, and treatment decisions. The second method was included although it does not isolate implicit attitudes because it is recognised by psychologists who specialise in implicit cognition as a way of detecting the possible presence of implicit bias. Twenty seven studies examined racial/ethnic biases; ten other biases were investigated, including gender, age and weight. Thirty five articles found evidence of implicit bias in healthcare professionals; all the studies that investigated correlations found a significant positive relationship between level of implicit bias and lower quality of care. The evidence indicates that healthcare professionals exhibit the same levels of implicit bias as the wider population. The interactions between multiple patient characteristics and between healthcare professional and patient characteristics reveal the complexity of the phenomenon of implicit bias and its influence on clinician-patient interaction. The most convincing studies from our review are those that combine the IAT and a method measuring the quality of treatment in the actual world. Correlational evidence indicates that biases are likely to influence diagnosis and treatment decisions and levels of care in some circumstances and need to be further investigated. Our review also indicates that there may sometimes be a gap between the norm of impartiality and the extent to which it is embraced by healthcare professionals for some of the tested characteristics. Our findings highlight the need for the healthcare profession to address the role of implicit biases in disparities in healthcare. More research in actual care settings and a greater homogeneity in methods employed to test implicit biases in healthcare is needed.