Background: In this study, a sample of 16 infants (the observational units) were asked to choose between the helper toy and the hinderer toy (their choice is the variable of interest). The research question is whether 10-month old infants demonstrate a genuine preference for the helper toy and will tend to pick it to play with more often than the hinderer toy. Keep in mind that in the study, the researchers balanced the colors and shapes of the objects across the trials. They also randomized whether the helper toy was on the left or the right when presented to the infant. The "methods section" of the article is here.
In this lab, you will examine numerical and graphical summaries of the research data, and then you will consider whether the preference exhibited by the 16 infants in the study is strong enough to convince you that they weren’t just picking at random but actually that 10-month-old infants in general have a genuine preference for the helper toy (that the probability a 10-month-old infant picks the helper toy is larger than .5).
Goals: To investigate this research question by using technology to obtain some simple numerical and graphical summaries (applying ideas from Topics 1-3) of the research results and by exploring the concept of "statistical significance."
Notes:
- In this lab, you will use a java applet. To do so, you may need to "allow ActiveX content." The applet should work on both Macs and PCs.
When you are ready, (scroll down and) click Start to begin.
