This article gives a method of finding discrete approximations to continuous probability density functions and shows examples of its use, allowing students without calculus access to the calculation of means and variances.

Visually presented letter strings consistently yield three MEG response components: the M170, associated with letter-string processing (Tarkiainen, Helenius, Hansen, Cornelissen, & Salmelin, 1999); the M250, affected by phonotactic probability, (Pylkkanen, Stringfellow, & Marantz, 2002); and the M350, responsive to lexical frequency (Embick,…

Four experiments examined 3 types of violations of coherence criteria in risk assessments of a terrorist attack. First, the requirement that extensionally equivalent descriptions be assigned the same probability (i.e., additivity) was violated. Unpacking descriptions of an attack into subtypes led to an increase in assessed risk. Second,…

This paper comments on the response offered by Trafimow on Lee and Wagenmakers comments on Trafimow's original article. It seems our comment should have made it clear that the objective Bayesian approach we advocate views probabilities neither as relative frequencies nor as belief states, but as degrees of plausibility assigned to propositions in…

Four experiments support the hypothesis that syntactically relevant information about verbs is encoded in the lexicon in semantic event templates. A verb's event template represents the participants in an event described by the verb and the relations among the participants. The experiments show that lexical decision times are longer for verbs with…

Conditional probability and statistical independence can be better explained with contingency tables. In this note some special cases of 2 x 2 contingency tables are considered. In turn an interesting insight into statistical dependence as well as independence of events is obtained.

The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to begin testing new English Learners (EL) in English language arts within three years after they enter school and holds schools accountable for their performance on these exams. Yet very little empirical work has examined exactly how long it takes EL students to become proficient in English and how…

Using self-reported academic cheating from the classes of 1959 through 2002 at the three major United States military service academies (Air Force, Army, and Navy), we measure how peer cheating influences individual cheating behavior. We find higher levels of peer cheating result in a substantially increased probability that an individual will…

A whimsical mathematics event for children and adults, derived from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, was held at the Providence Children's Museum in Rhode Island. NCTM's Standards were the basis of all the activities. (Contains 10 figures and 1 table.)

Using national transcript data, the authors examine inequality in access to an advanced curriculum in high school and assess the consequences of curricular intensity on test scores and college entry. Inequalities in curricular intensity are primarily explained by student socioeconomic status effects that operate within schools rather than between…

In an effort to answer the "Educational Call to Arms", our national public schools have turned to Advanced Placement (AP) courses as the predominate vehicle used to address the lack of academic rigor in our public high schools. Advanced Placement is believed by many to provide students with the rigor and work ethic necessary to…

Gilbert Gottlieb's theory of probabilistic epigenesis replaced the nature-nurture dichotomy, and similar oppositions, with an integrated account of the development of the entire behavioral phenotype. In that theory, invariant developmental outcomes cannot be identified with an organism's 'nature,' if by that term is meant a set of predetermined…