Statistics form the basis of the results in many a
neuroscience paper (and other scientific papers, of course). And at times,
statistics can get a little confusing. I have never taken a statistics class,
so for me, just the vocabulary itself is confusing (i.e. variance, standard
error, linear regression, normal distribution, etc.). As well, the shorthand
mathematical way of writing statistics and its formulas that is often found in
papers is hard for me to wrap my mind around.
In experiments, certain methods are performed multiple times
with a bit of tweaking so as to test for other (typically unforeseen) variables
to progress the research. But sometimes the authors who write about these experiments
fail to explain why they tweak what they tweak in such a way that is easy to
understand. As well, they don't always mention why they do certain things (e.g.
test on one species as opposed to another).
Oh the confusion!
-Alice Huang
No comments:
Post a Comment