As mentioned in Chapters 2 and 3 (pp. 38 and 81) Steven Schmidt (1994) reported a series of studies examining the effect of humor on memory. In one part of the study, participants were presented with a list containing a mix of humorous and nonhumorous sentences, and were then asked to recall as many sentences as possible. Schmidt recorded the number of humorous and the number of nonhumorous sentences recalled by each individual. Notice that the data consist of two memory scores for each participant. Suppose that a difference score is computed for each individual in a sample of n = 16 and the resulting data show that participants recalled an average of MD = 3.25 more humorous sentences than nonhumorous, with SS = 135. Are these results sufficient to conclude that humor has a significant effect on memory? Use a two-tailed test with α = 0.05. H0: µ = 0; HA: µ ≠ 0 α = 0.05. Two-tailed test à critical area of 0.025 on each side. D.F. = 16-1 = 15. àCritical value of t = 2.13 s2D = 135 / 15 = 9 à sMD = SQRT(9/16) = 0.75 Test value of t = (3.25 – 0)/0.75 = 4.33 |4.33| > |2.13| à Reject H0.
Inverse Normal Distribution
The method used for finding the corresponding z-critical value in a normal distribution using the known probability is said to be an inverse normal distribution. The inverse normal distribution is a continuous probability distribution with a family of two parameters.
Mean, Median, Mode
It is a descriptive summary of a data set. It can be defined by using some of the measures. The central tendencies do not provide information regarding individual data from the dataset. However, they give a summary of the data set. The central tendency or measure of central tendency is a central or typical value for a probability distribution.
Z-Scores
A z-score is a unit of measurement used in statistics to describe the position of a raw score in terms of its distance from the mean, measured with reference to standard deviation from the mean. Z-scores are useful in statistics because they allow comparison between two scores that belong to different normal distributions.
As mentioned in Chapters 2 and 3 (pp. 38 and 81) Steven Schmidt (1994) reported a series of studies examining the effect of humor on memory. In one part of the study, participants were presented with a list containing a mix of humorous and nonhumorous sentences, and were then asked to recall as many sentences as possible. Schmidt recorded the number of humorous and the number of nonhumorous sentences recalled by each individual. Notice that the data consist of two memory scores for each participant. Suppose that a difference score is computed for each individual in a sample of n = 16 and the resulting data show that participants recalled an average of MD = 3.25 more humorous sentences than nonhumorous, with SS = 135. Are these results sufficient to conclude that humor has a significant effect on memory? Use a two-tailed test with α = 0.05.
- H0: µ = 0; HA: µ ≠ 0
- α = 0.05. Two-tailed test à critical area of 0.025 on each side. D.F. = 16-1 = 15. àCritical value of t = 2.13
- s2D = 135 / 15 = 9 à sMD = SQRT(9/16) = 0.75
Test value of t = (3.25 – 0)/0.75 = 4.33
- |4.33| > |2.13| à Reject H0.
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