The longer the time it takes to accept a pairing, the greater our bias. When we are asked to make the link between a pair that goes against our implicit associations (for example 'old' and 'happy') it will take us fractionally longer to overcome our bias.
The theory is that, depending on our prejudices, we will subconsciously make the link between 'male' and 'clever', or 'young' and 'beautiful'. The images will be either of black or white people, male or female, young or old, depending on which bias researchers are testing. The images and words are set to flash up at random on a computer screen, and participants make their selections when the words flash up at the same time as one of the sets of images. Participants are given two sets of images and two lists of words: one with positive associations ('happy', 'love') the other with negative ('tragedy', 'agony').
