Question

Based upon the work of Elizabeth Loftus, a researcher was interested in testing the most effective way to implant false memories in people. First, she had all subjects watch a 60 minute movie. Then she randomly assigned these subjects to one of four conditions, each of which used different assessment techniques to influence subjects to think they saw something that didn't actually occur. Condition A utilized falsified photos, condition B utilized falsified video, condition C utilized misleading narrative, and condition D was a control group with no intervention at all. The data below shows how many false memories subjects in each condition 'remembered'.
Condition A: {xA} = (4,8,6,6,5,9)
Condition B: {xB} = (9,10,7,9,11,7)
Condition C: {xC} = (2,1,2,2,4,3)
Condition D: {xD} = (0,2,1,1,0,3)

Question 8:
Assume that we made a priori hypothesis regarding the relationship between each of the three experimental conditions and the control group (i.e. A to D, B to D, and C to D). Is there any point in assessing the differences between the means of these groups? If no, explain why. If yes, describe what you would do to assess these differences.

Question 9:
Are there any potential differences between the means of the three experimental conditions (i.e. A to B, A to C, and B to C)? If no, explain how you know this. If yes, describe what you would do to assess these differences.

Answer 1

1. Yes, means of each group undergoing through each type of intervention do have a value. This is because mean helps in two ways. Firstly it helps in representing the group on a single digit for qualitative analysis. When a single digit which represents the average of all members in a group is available, it becomes easy for the researcher to compare between groups and state if one was above or below the other group. Secondly, the difference of the mean from the control group clearly explains how far did the interventions experience influence the first 3 groups such as A, B, and C concerning the one who never experienced any sort of intervention.
2. Here, there are 3 conditions such as A to C, B to C, and A to B. Yes, there is a potential difference between the means of these groups as well. These potential differences give us an idea regarding the type of intervention that worked more as compared to the other. All the values obtained here are positive. A positive value indicates that Condition A was the most effective and conditions B, C come in chronological order below A concerning effectiveness, If the relation of C to B or C to A or B to A is taken, the value would be negative signifying the lower influence of the first group as compared to the second one.