I was curious to see what my results would look like after realizing faces were a part of the test, as I have genuine trouble recognizing and processing faces in general. In addition, I tend to process things in fairly mechanical ways (moving in a rhymth, at a set speed, etc), and wondered how that would play into trying to press things as quickly as possible. I also know I have a tendency to get distressed when made aware that I've made a mistake, which often leads to a cascade of further mistakes.
Spectrum aside, based on my own identities, family upbringing, community, and education, I expected my results to show a preference for people with light skin, or an association between light skin and being American in each test.
While taking the Race and Asian IATs, I struggled to differentiate faces from each category, making mistakes even in the first rounds (which predictably frazzled me and led to a cascade of further mistakes). This wasn't an issue for me in the Skin Tone or Native IATs. Other than that, everything seemed pretty straight forward. I'd be very curious how much my results were impacted by my challenges in identifing faces, or by my inability to not fall into a beat when pressing buttons. I'm also curious whether there's any research on whether neurodiversity impacts IAT results, perception, or best practices for testing for associations/bias.
My results did surprise me. The Skin Tone IAT showed a slight automatic preference for darker skin tones, and the Race IAT showed a moderate automatic preference for African Americans. This was opposite my initial prediction. My results showed no preferences in the Native IAT, and a slight preference in associating Europeans and America in the Asian IAT.
