Question

Neurons fire action potentials (spikes) at different frequencies under different circumstances. In one study, researchers position an awake-behaving monkey so that he or she is looking at a luminous dot 40 cm away, and they record the activity of a single neuron in the monkey's brain to determine the neuron's baseline. Over the course of 64 trials randomly interspaced with other conditions, that neuron is found to have an average baseline of x¯=26.8 spikes per second with a standard deviation of ????=33.2 spikes per second. What is the standard error of the sample mean, SE, in spikes per second? Give your answer to two decimal places.

Answer 1

4.15 spikes/sec

Explanation:

Given that neurons fire action potentials (spikes) at different frequencies under different circumstances. In one study, researchers position an awake-behaving monkey so that he or she is looking at a luminous dot 40 cm away, and they record the activity of a single neuron in the monkey's brain to determine the neuron's baseline.

Sample size n = 64

`\bar x = 26.8 spikes/sec\\s= 33.2 spikes/sec`

Standard error of sample = std dev / sqrt n

=
`(33.2)/(√(64) ) \\=4.15`

Hence standard error of sample mean for the sample with size 64 is

4.15 spikes per second