Drawing Conclusions Beyond the Data
The descriptive analysis you just did tells us what we have learned about the infants who participated in the study. But what does it tell us about the underlying selection process that infants use in general? If we treat these infants' choices as observations from a random process, what can we say about the long-run probability of a 10-month-old infant selecting the helper toy?
Thought Questions (Think about briefly, discuss with your partner and move on)
- What are two possible explanations for why a majority of infants chose the helper toy?
- Consider the research question. Is it plausible that there is something to the theory that infants are genuinely more likely to pick the helper toy (for some reason)?
- Is it possible that infants don't have any long-run tendency to pick the helper toy and the researchers had this large of a majority "just by chance"?
- Why are we not considering color of the toy as an explanation for the observed majority?
- Consider the "random chance alone" explanation, how might you convince someone that this is not a plausible explanation?
- Suppose we wanted to investigate what types of values (proportion choosing the helper toy) we are likely to see in the just random choice world. Suggest a method for carrying out a simulation of infants picking equally between the two toys.
