Equivalence Tests:  A Practical Primer for t-Tests, Correlations, and Meta-Analyses

Las tecnologías de realidad virtual permiten representar casi cualquier ambiente, real o ficticio, en una escena virtual. Estas escenas facilitan que un usuario pueda integrarse dentro de un laboratorio controlado y participar en diferentes estudios científicos. En muchos campos del quehacer científico, como por ejemplo la psicología, se han integrado ya estas tecnologías, sin embargo, el área todavía presenta muchos problemas abiertos. Este trabajo busca conocer si los cada vez más depurados ambientes virtuales pueden ser capaces de reemplazar a las pruebas psicológicas realizadas de manera tradicional. Esto es lo que en esta investigación se planteó, al recrear virtualmente tres situaciones humanas y vincularlas con un test de ansiedad tradicional. Mediante el doble test unilateral de equivalencia, los resultados mostraron una equivalencia estadística significativa.

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“…La adopción de pruebas de equivalencia evitará las malas interpretaciones comunes de valores p no significativos" (Lakens, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionunclassified

Mini-Spin y Mini-Spin-VR: equivalencia entre test de ansiedad virtuales y tradicionales

2018

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“…This intuition was used to establish equivalence bounds (Lakens, 2017) in order to be clearer about whether the data justify acceptance of the null hypothesis, as opposed to mere failure to reject it. Considering an effect of intervention no greater than the estimated effect of stimulus quality as uninterestingly small, we used the least extreme of these two estimates (24.07) to set lower and upper equivalence bounds.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intervening to learn about effects of one’s actions

Bowers¹,

Timberlake²

2018

AB&C

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-Intervention provides a reliable cue to veridical causality. Just as an experimenter manipulates variables to distinguish cause and effect from mere correlation, so might a rat learn differently about the effects of its own actions. However, theory remains vague on specific predictions. The present study asks whether and how producing a conditional stimulus by lever contact alters what a rat learns about that stimulus. Despite the theoretical pressure among theories of causal reasoning for an effect of intervention to hold, the effect we found was not in standard goal-oriented response variables, but in a general activity measure, and so not readily interpretable by typical theories of causal reasoning. We propose a viable explanation for this pattern in terms of multiple foraging strategies. The primary contribution of the present results is that they pose three challenges to theories that concern how animals deal with cause and effect: 1) to resolve present ambiguities regarding predictions; 2) to situate causal cognition research in specific ecological contexts, such as predation; and 3) to look beyond goal acquisition, to the rest of the animal's behavior, including general activity. We present one potential solution in alignment with behavior systems approaches. Keywords -Intervention, Causal reasoning, Graphical models, Behavior systems, General activity, Rattus norvegicusExperimenters manipulate variables to discern cause and effect from mere correlation. They understand that producing a potential cause by one's own action to observe its effects (intervention) is crucial to their ability to attribute causation, and how observing covariation in this context provides much stronger evidence of causation than observing the same pattern occurring without control over relevant variables. However, it is not only experimenters who experiment. Cooks experiment with recipes; electricians experiment with circuits; and the rest of us experiment with recipes, circuits, plumbing, automotive repair, and whenever we attempt to decipher hidden causal factors. When we do, we are not always very principled scientists about it (even the principled scientists), but whatever experimental control we may overlook while adjusting the amount of sugar in a cake, reliably, when we test causal factors, here or in any domain, we intervene on variables.Likewise, rats are not merely passive observers, but engage in reliable patterns of appetitive behavior in which they interact with objects in their environments in system-specific ways. A feedingready rat will root, gnaw, and manipulate protrusions, thereby producing effects that may provide meaningful cues to causality. Such information is often available to be exploited by an active learner. Do they use this information appropriately? Are rats naïve experimenters? To be clear, the question is not whether rats are doing what a trained experimenter does. Rather, one can imagine a rat testing hypotheses with no more foresight than shown by human naïve experimenters. For instanc...

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“…In order to examine whether the effect sizes in our sample on associations between FAbody and 468 mating success are statistically different from previously reported mean effect sizes, we conducted 469 equivalence tests using R package TOSTER (Lakens, 2017). As the effect sizes of interest (equivalence 470 bounds) we used the mean from the range of plausible mean estimates reported in a recent meta-471 analysis by Grebe, Falcon and Gangestad (2017).…”

Section: Equivalence Tests 467mentioning

confidence: 99%

Preprint: Kordsmeyer & Penke, "The association of three indicators of developmental instability with mating success in humans"

Penke¹

2017

Preprint

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25Developmental instability (DI) has been proposed to relate negatively to aspects of evolutionary 26 fitness, like mating success. One suggested indicator is fluctuating asymmetry (FA), random deviations 27 from perfect symmetry in bilateral bodily traits. A meta-analytically robust negative association between 28 FA and number of lifetime sexual partners has been previously shown in men and women. We examined 29 the relationship between bodily FA across twelve traits and indicators of quantitative mating success in 30 284 individuals (141 males, age 19-30 years). Two further indicators of DI, minor physical anomalies 31 (MPAs) and asymmetry in palmar atd angles, were also assessed. For men, no significant associations 32 were detected, whereas for women, unexpected positive relationships of FA with the number of lifetime 33 sexual partners and one-night stands emerged. Thus, in a large sample and using a more highly 34 aggregated FA index, our study fails to replicate previous findings, though equivalence testing also did 35 not support deviation from previous meta-analytic estimates, especially for men. No associations were 36 found for MPAs and FA in atd angles in either sex.

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Equivalence Tests: A Practical Primer for t-Tests, Correlations, and Meta-Analyses

Cited by 667 publications

References 17 publications

Mini-Spin y Mini-Spin-VR: equivalencia entre test de ansiedad virtuales y tradicionales

Mini-Spin y Mini-Spin-VR: equivalencia entre test de ansiedad virtuales y tradicionales

Intervening to learn about effects of one’s actions

Preprint: Kordsmeyer & Penke, "The association of three indicators of developmental instability with mating success in humans"

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Equivalence Tests: A Practical Primer for t-Tests, Correlations, and Meta-Analyses

Cited by 667 publications

References 17 publications

Mini-Spin y Mini-Spin-VR: equivalencia entre test de ansiedad virtuales y tradicionales

Mini-Spin y Mini-Spin-VR: equivalencia entre test de ansiedad virtuales y tradicionales

Intervening to learn about effects of one’s actions

Preprint: Kordsmeyer &amp; Penke, "The association of three indicators of developmental instability with mating success in humans"

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Preprint: Kordsmeyer & Penke, "The association of three indicators of developmental instability with mating success in humans"