In 1998, Emily Rosa et al. published an article in JAMA “investigat[ing] whether
ID: 3303994 • Letter: I
Question
In 1998, Emily Rosa et al. published an article in JAMA “investigat[ing] whether TT [Therapeutic Touch] practitioners can actually perceive a ‘human energy field.’ … practitioners … were tested under blinded conditions to determine whether they could correctly identify which of their hands was closest to the investigator’s hand. Placement of the investigator’s hand was determined by flipping a coin.” If TT practitioners could not detect a human energy field, their chance of guessing correctly would have been 0.5.
A total of 280 trials were conducted. The practitioners actually made a total of 123 correct guesses.
What is the most reasonable conclusion to draw from this experiment?
A. There is statistically significant evidence (p = 2.4%) that a human energy field exists.
B. The results show statistically significant evidence in favor of a human energy field (p = 2.4%), but it is likely that the statistically significant results were due to luck.
C. The results provide statistically significant evidence that the probability of guessing correctly is exactly 50.0%.
D. The results indicate that the probability of guessing correctly could be 50.0% or even lower.
E. The results are not statistically significant, which means there is chance of guessing correctly must be 50.0% or higher.
Explanation / Answer
The statistical software output for this problem is:
One sample proportion summary hypothesis test:
p : Proportion of successes
H0 : p = 0.5
HA : p > 0.5
Hypothesis test results:
Since p - value is very large, the results indicate that the probability of guessing correctly could be 50.0% or even lower.
Option D is correct.
Proportion Count Total Sample Prop. Std. Err. Z-Stat P-value p 123 280 0.43928571 0.029880715 -2.0318886 0.9789Related Questions
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