Essay Prep (Test #2)

Question 1

Briefly describe how Jim’s parents tested whether he could taste the difference between
yellow and black raisins

Answer 1

(1) Dad covered and shieled Jim’s eyes to take away his sense of vision,

(2) and his mom randomly feeds Jim a raisin and inquires, “what colour is this?”

(3) The procedure is repeated numerous times with randomly selected coloured raisins

Question 2

Describe the test in the framework presented in lecture

Answer 2

The familiarity of the black raisins was a tasty snack for the kids; their mom brought back home yellow raisins

They were immediately skeptical of this odd rendition of their favorite dried fruit and doubtful they would taste as good as the original, black ones

Question 3

What is the hypothesis of a test?

Answer 3

A hypothesis is any claim under investigation; it is undetermined whether it is true or false, therefore requires testing

Question 4

State the hypothesis of this test

Answer 4

If Jim can taste the difference between the yellow and black raisins

Question 5

Describe/state the aim of this test

Answer 5

To determine whether Jim can or cannot taste the difference between the yellow and black raisins

Question 6

State the prediction of this test

Answer 6

This test has binary outcomes:

Either the prediction is true, and the hypothesis is true P (E/H).

Or the prediction is false, and the hypothesis is false P (E/not-H)

Question 7

State the result of this test

Answer 7

Jim stated the colours of the raisins correctly

Question 8

What conclusion did Jim’s parents draw from this test?

Answer 8

Jim can distinguish the taste between the yellow and black raisins

Question 9

Describe the strength of evidence test

Answer 9

The strength of evidence test is applied by comparing the following:

A) suppose H is true: how likely is this?
B) suppose H is false: how likely is this?

Question 10

Then carefully apply the “strength of evidence test” to evaluate whether the test conducted by Jim’s parent’s provided strong evidence for the claim that Jim can taste the difference between yellow and black raisins.

Answer 10

There is a direct observation of the correlation between Jim eating the different coloured raisins, but can we directly observe that Jim is tasting a difference?

By eliminating bias by blindfolding Jim, we can note his honest responses

Jim eats black raisins and says yum

Jim eats yellow raisins and says yuck

H is true (Jim can taste the difference)