Alpha is not the false alarm rate
Prior (base rate) [......] Power (true positive rate) [......] Alpha (false positive rate)
Differences between alpha and the false alarm rate
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Notes
Details about this activity can be found in my 2019 Teaching of Psychology article, "Alpha is not the false alarm rate: An activity to dispel a common statistical misconception."
Please email me (Burt Thompson) if you have questions or comments.
The graphs are made with jQuery (jquery.com) and Flot (flotcharts.org).
Details about this activity can be found in my 2019 Teaching of Psychology article, "Alpha is not the false alarm rate: An activity to dispel a common statistical misconception."
Please email me (Burt Thompson) if you have questions or comments.
The graphs are made with jQuery (jquery.com) and Flot (flotcharts.org).
Here is a more basic "false alarm rate" calculator
Alpha is not the false alarm rate
This app helps you explore how alpha, statistical power, and prior probability affect the likelihood that a "statistically significant" result is actually a false alarm. It assumes the study and data analyis were conducted properly. The default values (alpha = .05, power = .40, prior = .20) are approximately correct for the typical study in psychology. This means for the typical well-conducted psychology study, a "significant" finding is much more likely to be a false alarm (~ 33%) than suggested by the alpha level of 5%.