Steven Schmidt (1994) conducted a series of experiments examining the effects of

Question

Steven Schmidt (1994) conducted a series of experiments examining the effects of humor on memory. In one study, participants were given a mix of humorous and nonhumorous sentences and significantly more humorous sentences were recalled. However, Schmidt argued that the humorous sentences were not necessarily easier to remember, they were simply preferred when participant had a choice between the two types of sentence. To test this argument, he switched to an independent – measures design in which one group got a set of exclusively humorous sentences and another group got a set of exclusively nonhumorous sentences. The following data are similar to the results from the independent – measures study.

Humorous Sentences 4 5 2 4 6 7 6 6 2 5 4 3 3 3 5 3 Nonhumorous Sentences
6 3 5 3
3 4 2 6
4 3 4 4 5 2 6 4



Do the results indicate a significant difference in the recall of humorous versus nonhumorous sentences? Use a two-tailed test with a = .05
Humorous Sentences 4 5 2 4 6 7 6 6 2 5 4 3 3 3 5 3 Nonhumorous Sentences
6 3 5 3
3 4 2 6
4 3 4 4 5 2 6 4 Humorous Sentences 4 5 2 4 6 7 6 6 2 5 4 3 3 3 5 3 Nonhumorous Sentences
6 3 5 3
3 4 2 6
4 3 4 4 5 2 6 4

Explanation / Answer

Humorous x= 4.25 (mean) s^2= 2.3333 (variance) Non Humorous x=4 s^2= 1.7333 test statistic t= (4.25-4)/ sqrt( 2.3333/16 +1.73333/16)= 0.25/0.504= 0.496 Look up in t table under degrees of freedom n-1 (16-1)= 15 P value > 0.25, since it is greater than our alpha value of .05 we do not reject the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the means.

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