Homework 8

Draw all of your diagrams. Show all of your hypotheses, critical regions, statistical
decisions, and verbal interpretations.
1. A researcher is interested in whether fighting fish are more aggressive in dark
environments than in light environments. To examine this she takes a random sample of
20 fish and measures the time to produce fight display in a darkened tank. She knows
that under light conditions the average time to display is: = 1225.15 msec, = 50.3,
msec. Her 20 fish average: x = 1171.1 msec. Test her hypothesis is a two-tailed (bidirectional) test with = .05. Give an 80% CI for the time to display in the dark, if
necessary.
2. A researcher knows that on average students at his school attend = 7, = 2.02
extracurricular, community service events/activities per semester. He wants to know
whether having students read a 5-page document about the benefits of community service
will get the students to be more involved. He randomly selects 10 students to read the
document during the first week of classes. He then surveys them at the end of the
semester to see how many activities they have been involved in. He finds the following
number of activities per person: 7, 9, 8, 9, 7, 7, 8, 9, 8, and 9. Did the document make a
difference? Test with = .05, one-tail. If yes, give an 80% CI for the new .
3. A researcher knows that errors on a finger maze learning task are normally distributed
with = 11.9, = 2.1. The researcher believes that he can improve performance by
having the subjects ingest a low dose of caffeine, 20 minutes prior to learning the task.
He uses a random sample of n = 12 subjects in his study. They make the following
number of errors: 10, 12, 10, 11, 9, 10, 9, 10, 10, 12, 10, and 9. Does the caffeine help?
Test with = .05, one-tail. If yes, give a 70% CI for the new .
4. A researcher wants to know whether temperature will affect the maze performance of
mice learning a water maze. She knows that with 74 degree water, the mice learn the
maze in an average of = 12, = 2 trials. She tests a sample of n = 12 mice with 68
degree water in the maze. They learn the maze in an average of 9.6 trials. Does
temperature affect performance? Test with = .05, two-tails. If yes, give a point estimate
and a 70 % CI for the new .
5. A researcher wants to know whether interacting with a pet can reduce blood pressure in
elderly patients with hypertension. She knows that in her population blood pressure is
normally distributed with = 175 (top value only) and = 18. She randomly selects 15
patients to receive daily visits from a therapy dog. After 3 weeks she finds that the
subjects blood pressure averages 162. Does the dog help? Test with = .01, two-tails. If
yes, give a point estimate and an 80% CI for the new .