Can parents distinguish their own children by smell alone? To investigate, Porte
ID: 56009 • Letter: C
Question
Can parents distinguish their own children by smell alone? To investigate, Porter and Moore (1981) gave new T-shirts to children of nine mothers. Each child wore his or her shirt to bed for three consecutive nights. During the day, from walking until bedtime, the shirt were kept in individually sealed plastic bags. No scented soaps or perfumes were used during the study. Each mother was then given the shirt of her child and that of another randomly chosen child, and asked to identify her own by smell. Eight of nine mothers identified their children correctly. Use this study to answer the following questions, using a two-sided test and a significance level of 0.05.
a) To carry out a statistical test based on these data, what is the appropriate null hypothesis?
b) What is the alternative hypothesis?
c) What test statistic would you use?
Explanation / Answer
Null hypothesis: parents cannot distinguish their child by smell alone, and H0 : P=0.05. Alternative hypothesis: parents can detect their child by smell alone, i.e. H1 : P not equal to 0.05 Test static that can be used: z test static .