Alterations in performance and discriminating power of the death/suicide implicit association test across the lifespan

•Suicide is a major public health concern in the United states.•Death/suicide implicit associations shown to be objective marker for suicide risk.•Age effect associated with key measures on death/suicide implicit association test.•Death/suicide implicit associations differentiated suicide risk only in younger ages. The Death/Suicide Implicit Association Test (d/s-IAT) has differentiated individuals with prior and prospective suicide attempts in previous studies, however, age effects on test results remains to be explored. A three-site study compared performance on the d/s-IAT among participants aged 16–80 years with depression and prior suicide attempt (n = 82), with depression and no attempts (n = 80), and healthy controls (n = 86). Outcome measures included the standard difference (D) score, median reaction times, and error rates. Higher D scores represent a stronger association between death/suicide and self, while lower scores represent a stronger association between life and self. The D scores differed significantly among groups overall. Participants with depression exhibited higher scores compared to healthy controls, but there was no difference between participants with and without prior suicide attempts(F[2,242]=8.76, p