Implicit Testing

Adding Implicit Measures to Quantitative Surveys

to Assess How Survey Respondents Truly Feel about a Brand or a Marketing Stimulus 

Why We Need Implicit Testing

The questioning approach that is followed in a typical quantitative research project is one that captures the reactions of respondents – to a stimulus, say description of a new product idea, an advertisement, a packaging, a brand logo, or perceptions of a brand, a celebrity, a social influencer, etc. – only as stated by them.


The responses that we get in a traditional questionnaire-based survey, namely explicit responses, are those that are derived from conscious thinking and they do not reflect the implicit bias in thought process.


When respondents are exposed to a stimulus, they do not always give implicit associations based on their implicit attitude, and tell us what they really think about it. It is not that they are unwilling. Oftentimes they are just unaware of their true reactions.


What gets stated in a survey are their thoughts that are rational, logic-based, slow, deliberate and are far away from implicit bias. And what remains unrevealed are their reactions that are unconscious, intuitive, fast, emotion-based and implicit associations which are influenced by their Implicit bias in the thought process. These implicit associations are what matters when consumers make decisions such as purchase or recommendation of a brand, or form impressions about the brand.


There are two modes of thinking, System 1 Thinking and System 2 Thinking. System 1 Thinking is fast, unconscious, and automatic. System 2 Thinking is slow, conscious, and effortful. Of all the thinking we do when making decisions or taking actions, System 1 Thinking accounts for 95%, and System 2, a meagre 5%.


Unbeknownst to them, what respondents express in a survey is influenced by various unconscious cognitive biases or Implicit biases that tend to make them come across as rational, conformist, positive, polite, and so on.


Implicit Testing helps overcome such hurdles in responses due to those unconscious or implicit biases and unearths the reactions of the respondents that are unsaid and unknown and reveals to us the true bias-free response to the stimulus.

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How It Works

The Krenium implicit testing online survey platform captures not just what people say in response to questions but how spontaneously they do so, with how much conviction or hesitation they react, and how emphatically or passively they respond. It incorporates gamification into the survey and makes use of new-age technology that measures, with micro precision, various parameters that reflect response behavior.


A robust AI system, which is enhanced continually through a self-learning process, is used to read the response behavior patterns.


The system measures the strength of unconscious association between every object being tested and every attribute being used for the assessment.

The object can be a marketing stimulus shown in the form of text, an image, or a video. And the attribute can be in a textual form or an image.


A strong association between the object and the attribute is revealed in the form of a response that is more resolute, a reaction time that is small, and the mouse pointer movement or swipe is direct.


A weak association between the object and the attribute is revealed in the form of a response that is more vacillating, a reaction time that is large, and the mouse pointer movement or swipe is indirect.

The Krenium platform provides a comprehensive suite of robust implicit testing tools.

  • Implicit Association Testing

  • Implicit Priming Testing

  • Implicit Reaction Testing

  • Visual Attention Testing with Shelf Simulation

  • Visual Attention Testing for Any Consumer Interface


We look forward to talking to you

Get in touch with our team to help you clear a choice using implicit testing techniques

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