Question

Many animals, including humans, tend to avoid direct eye contact and even patterns that look like eyes. Some insects, including moths, have evolved eye-spot patterns on their wings to help ward off predators. Scaife (1976) reports a study examining how eye-spot patterns affect the behavior of birds. In the study, the birds were tested in a box with two chambers and were free to move from one chamber to another. In one chamber, two large eye-spots were painted on one wall. The other chamber had plain walls. The researcher recorded the amount of time each bird spent in the plain chamber during a 60-minute session. Suppose the study produced a mean of on the plain chamber with for a sample of birds. (Note: If the eye spots have no effect, then the birds should spend an average of μ = 34. 5 minutes in each chamber with SS = 210 for a sample of n = 15 birds)

Is this sample sufficient to conclude that the eye spots have a significant influence on the birds' behavior?

Answer 1

The sample size of the birds and their mean time spent in the plain chamber are provided. However, the standard deviation for the plain chamber is missing, making it impossible to conduct a proper statistical analysis.

Step-by-step explanation:

In this study, the researcher painted eye-spot patterns on one wall of a chamber and left the other chamber with plain walls. The researcher recorded the amount of time each bird spent in the plain chamber during a 60-minute session. The question asks if this sample is sufficient to conclude that the eye spots have a significant influence on the birds' behavior.

To answer this question, we need to perform a statistical analysis using the mean and standard deviation provided. Specifically, we can conduct a t-test to determine if the mean difference between the plain chamber and the eye-spot chamber is statistically significant. If the p-value is less than a predetermined significance level (e.g., 0.05), we can conclude that the eye spots have a significant influence on the birds' behavior.

However, the standard deviation (SD) for the plain chamber is not provided, so we cannot calculate the t-test using the information given.