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A power fallacy

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Abstract

The power fallacy refers to the misconception that what holds on average –across an ensemble of hypothetical experiments– also holds for each case individually. According to the fallacy, high-power experiments always yield more informative data than do low-power experiments. Here we expose the fallacy with concrete examples, demonstrating that a particular outcome from a high-power experiment can be completely uninformative, whereas a particular outcome from a low-power experiment can be highly informative. Although power is useful in planning an experiment, it is less useful—and sometimes even misleading—for making inferences from observed data. To make inferences from data, we recommend the use of likelihood ratios or Bayes factors, which are the extension of likelihood ratios beyond point hypotheses. These methods of inference do not average over hypothetical replications of an experiment, but instead condition on the data that have actually been observed. In this way, likelihood ratios and Bayes factors rationally quantify the evidence that a particular data set provides for or against the null or any other hypothesis.

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Notes

  1. While odds lie on a naturally meaningful scale calibrated by betting, characterizing evidence through verbal labels such as “moderate” and “strong” is necessarily subjective (Kass & Raftery, 1995). We believe the labels are useful because they facilitate scientific communication, but they should only be considered an approximate descriptive articulation of different standards of evidence.

  2. In order to obtain a t value of 5 with a sample size of only 10 participants, the precognition score needs to have a large mean or a small variance.

  3. In order to obtain a t value of 1.7 with a sample size of 100, the the precognition score needs to have a small mean or a high variance.

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Correspondence to Eric-Jan Wagenmakers.

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This work was supported by an ERC grant from the European Research Council. Correspondence concerning this article may be addressed to Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, University of Amsterdam, Department of Psychology, Weesperplein 4, 1018 XA Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Email address: EJ.Wagenmakers@gmail.com.

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Wagenmakers, EJ., Verhagen, J., Ly, A. et al. A power fallacy. Behav Res 47, 913–917 (2015). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0517-4

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