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A text-book of experimental psychology.On statistical methods.

A text-book of experimental psychology.: On statistical methods. It is incompatible with scientific method to draw conclusions from the result of a single observation. The reliability of a single observation must be tested by several repetitions of the experiment under conditions as precisely constant as possible. In such a series of repeated experiments we can rarely obtain identical results. Where the results appear to be identical, more refined methods of measurement will surely show minute differences. This discrepancy between individual results, due to the variation of uncontrollable circumstances, increases with the complexity of the conditions of experiment. In psychology it is only natural that stricter attention should be paid to such discrepancies than in other branches of science, for nowhere are the experimental conditions so complicated as in the investigation of mental phenomena. Indeed, it is important at the outset to recognise that average results are of relatively small value in psychology. Whereas physical science treats errors of observation as accidental, and endeavours, so far as possible, to eliminate them, in psychological science the causation of these errors is the prime object of investigation. From the psychological standpoint an average is often a blurred result, the chief value of which is to draw attention to the individual variations, and to the conditions producing them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A text-book of experimental psychology.On statistical methods.

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Publisher
Longmans, Green and Co
Copyright
Copyright © 1909 American Psychological Association
Pages
123 –131
DOI
10.1037/13628-010
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

It is incompatible with scientific method to draw conclusions from the result of a single observation. The reliability of a single observation must be tested by several repetitions of the experiment under conditions as precisely constant as possible. In such a series of repeated experiments we can rarely obtain identical results. Where the results appear to be identical, more refined methods of measurement will surely show minute differences. This discrepancy between individual results, due to the variation of uncontrollable circumstances, increases with the complexity of the conditions of experiment. In psychology it is only natural that stricter attention should be paid to such discrepancies than in other branches of science, for nowhere are the experimental conditions so complicated as in the investigation of mental phenomena. Indeed, it is important at the outset to recognise that average results are of relatively small value in psychology. Whereas physical science treats errors of observation as accidental, and endeavours, so far as possible, to eliminate them, in psychological science the causation of these errors is the prime object of investigation. From the psychological standpoint an average is often a blurred result, the chief value of which is to draw attention to the individual variations, and to the conditions producing them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Published: Feb 13, 2012

Keywords: statistics; statistical methods; psychological science; experimental conditions; repeated experiments; statistical results; discrepancies; errors of observation; individual variations; error causation

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