What can we conclude from correlation? I just got my statistics test back and I am totally confused about one of the questions! A study was done that took a simple random sample of 40 people and measured whether the subjects were right-handed or left-handed, as well as their ages. The study showed that the proportion of left-handed people and the ages had a strong negative correlation. What can we conclude? Explain your answer. I know that we can't conclude that getting older causes people to become right-handed. Something else might be causing it, not the age. If two things are correlated, we can only conclude association, not causation. So I wrote: We can conclude that many people become right-handed as they grow older, but we cannot tell why. That's exactly what association means
Haiphongum
Answered question
2022-09-20
A study was done that took a simple random sample of 40 people and measured whether the subjects were right-handed or left-handed, as well as their ages. The study showed that the proportion of left-handed people and the ages had a strong negative correlation. What can we conclude? Explain your answer.
I know that we can't conclude that getting older causes people to become right-handed. Something else might be causing it, not the age. If two things are correlated, we can only conclude association, not causation. So I wrote:
We can conclude that many people become right-handed as they grow older, but we cannot tell why.
Answer & Explanation
nutnhonyl8
Beginner2022-09-21Added 8 answers
For one, the study only takes a sample at one point in time, rather than selecting a sample and monitoring their progress through many decades. This is what would be needed for us to even entertain the possibility that aging causes a change in handedness.
Other possible causes include that left handed people might have a shorter life expectancy, or perhaps there was a spike in the birth rate of right handed people in the past. There are many other possibilities that have been mentioned in others answers which would also account for the skewed proportions without requiring people to change handedness with age, which is what you falsely concluded in the test.
Also, just an observation, but it appears the "study" was conducted under false pretenses. Handedness is a false dichotomy, people can also be ambidextrous.
shaunistayb1
Beginner2022-09-22Added 4 answers
Cultural expectations for left- and right-handedness have changed over time. Older people may have gone to school at a time where left-handedness was discouraged and students were forced to write with their right hands, training children never to use the left hand instead of the right. Younger participants in the study were in school more recently and learned to write at a time where left-handedness was not discouraged, creating a positive correlation between left-handedness and youth.
New Questions in Inferential Statistics
Which of the following statements is not correct for the relation R defined by aRb, if and only if b lives within one kilometre from a?
A) R is reflexive
B) R is symmetric
C) R is not anti-symmetric
D) None of the aboveA line segment is a part of a line as well as a ray. True or False
Which characteristic of a data set makes a linear regression model unreasonable?
Find the meaning of 'Sxx' and 'Sxy' in simple linear regression
In the least-squares regression line, the desired sum of the errors (residuals) should be
a) zero
b) positive
c) 1
d) negative
e) maximizedCan the original function be derived from its order Taylor polynomial?
Should the independent (or dependent) variables in a linear regression model be normal or just the residual?
What is the relationship between the correlation of two variables and their covariance?
What kind of technique is to be adopted if I have to find an equation or model for say, depends on , changes for a set of , which changes for different .
Correlation bound
Let x and y be two random variables such that:
Corr(x,y) = b, where Corr(x,y) represents correlation between x and y, b is a scalar number in range of [-1, 1]. Let y' be an estimation of y. An example could be y'=y+(rand(0,1)-0.5)*.1, rand(0,1) gives random number between 0, 1. I am adding some noise to the data.
My questions are:
Is there a way where I can bound the correlation between x, y' i.e. Corr(x,y')?I mentioned y' in light of random perturbation, I would like to know what if I don't have that information, where I only know that y' is a estimation of y. Are there any literature that cover it?What is the benefit of OU vs regression for modeling data, say data in the form of () pairs?
Can you determine the correlation coefficient from the coefficient of determination?
How can one find the root of sesquilinear form with positive definite matrix?
From numerical simulation and regression analysis I discovered that the root-mean-square amplitude of white noise with bandwidth is proportional to . How can this be derived mathematically ?
In a Simple Linear Regression analysis, independent variable is weekly income and dependent variable is weekly consumption expenditure. Here % confidence interval of regression coefficient, is .
