gov.sandia.cognition.statistics.method

Interface NullHypothesisEvaluator<DataType>

Type Parameters:

DataType - The type of data to evaluate the null hypothesis for.

All Superinterfaces:

java.lang.Cloneable, CloneableSerializable, java.io.Serializable

All Known Subinterfaces:

BlockExperimentComparison<DataType>

All Known Implementing Classes:

AnalysisOfVarianceOneWay, ChiSquareConfidence, FisherSignConfidence, FriedmanConfidence, GaussianConfidence, KolmogorovSmirnovConfidence, MannWhitneyUConfidence, MultipleComparisonExperiment, StudentTConfidence, WilcoxonSignedRankConfidence

public interface NullHypothesisEvaluator<DataType>
extends CloneableSerializable

Evaluates the probability that the null-hypothesis is correct. The null hypothesis is generally taken to be something like "two observed datasets were generated by the same underlying distribution." In this case, rejecting the null hypothesis is equivalent to saying that two datasets were NOT generated by the same distribution. That is, with high confidence, we can be sure that the two observed datasets a statistically significantly different. Social scientists usually reject the null hypothesis when NullHypothesisProbability less than 0.05.

Since:

2.0

Author:

Kevin R. Dixon

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
ConfidenceStatistic	evaluateNullHypothesis(DataType data1, DataType data2) Computes the probability that two data were generated by the same distribution.

Methods inherited from interface gov.sandia.cognition.util.CloneableSerializable

clone

Method Detail

evaluateNullHypothesis

ConfidenceStatistic evaluateNullHypothesis(DataType data1,
                                           DataType data2)

Computes the probability that two data were generated by the same distribution. NullHypothesisProbability=1 means that the distributions are likely the same, NullHypothesisProbability=0 means they are likely NOT the same, and NullHypothesisProbability less than 0.05 is the standard statistical significance test. This is the "p-value" that social scientists like to use.

Parameters:

data1 - First dataset to consider

data2 - Second dataset to consider

Returns:

Probability that the two data were generated by the same source. A value of NullHypothesisProbability less than 0.05 is the standard point at which social scientists say two distributions were generated by different sources.