The Impact of Relational Training of Preferred Food and Non-Preferred Food to Arbitrary Symbols on Implicit Relational Tasks

Abstract

The Mixed-Trial Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (MT-IRAP) is a tool for measuring implicit behavior (i.e., biases or beliefs the individual is unaware of or intends to conceal from the public) among individuals. The MT-IRAP is a modified version of the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) and was designed to address limitations inherent to the IRAP’s design. The MT-IRAP was tested with adult participants across a series of five studies. Throughout each study, the MTIRAP assessed implicit behavior toward high-preferred foods, non-preferred foods, and arbitrary symbols. The experimenter administered the MT-IRAP before and after participant completion of a task designed to train relations between highpreferred foods or non-preferred foods and the arbitrary symbols. The utility of the MT-IRAP was supported, as MT-IRAP effects were consistently found for the groups of high-preferred and non-preferred foods during the pre-intervention administrations. Also, indications of food preference, as indicated by the MTIRAP, consistently matched the participants’ self-reported food preferences. Results suggested that relational training influenced MT-IRAP results for the arbitrary symbols with some participants, as pre- and post-intervention comparisons of MT-IRAP results for the symbols indicated response pattern shifts that aligned with the trained high preferred and non-preferred food with approximately half of the participants throughout the series of studies.