TABLE 2
FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE OF CORRECT JUDGMENTS
| Males | ||||||||||||||||||
| 18˝ | 36˝ | 72˝ | 108˝ | |||||||||||||||
| I | E | R | W | I | E | R | W | I | E | R | W | I | E | R | W | Σ | % | |
| 29 | 26 | 11 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 96 | 2.39 | |
| Totals 74 = 7.37% | 14 = 1.40% | 7 = 0.70% | 1 =0.10% | 96 | 2.39 | |||||||||||||
| Females | ||||||||||||||||||
| 7 | 15 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 46 | 1.05 | |
| Totals 27 = 2.48% | 7 = 0.62% | 8 = 0.73% | 4 = 0.37% | 46 | 1.05 | |||||||||||||
List of abbreviations which occur in the tables.
Σ always designates the sum of the results of the column which it heads.
I, E, R, W refer respectively to the intervals of idleness, estimating, reading, and writing.
The % sign refers to the value of the result in question in terms of the total number of judgments.
C refers to the results of the letter-counting test.
The male judgments for the 108-second intervals range from 11 to 300 seconds. If random guesses be made within these limits the probability of the occurrence of right guesses (108˝) would be 1 in 290; therefore among 1004 guesses (the number of male judgments for 108-second intervals) 3.5 would be right. In the experiment only one judgment of the 1004 was correct. For the other intervals, with the exception of 18 seconds, the number of correct judgments is only slightly greater than random guessing would have given. Both males and females, however, show considerably more correct judgments for 18-second intervals than the number of probable right guesses. Within the range of the male judgments and for their number 16.9 right guesses might be expected, for the females 10.9. In contrast with these numbers the experiments furnished 74 and 27 correct judgments respectively.
It is noteworthy that for those intervals which are most frequently correctly judged, not only is the number of correct judgments greater for the males than for the females (the ratio of the percentages is about 3 to 1), but the ratio of the number of correct judgments to the probable number of right guesses is also greater for the males.
The female judgments vary within a wider range and are less often correct than the male. For the latter the total number of correct judgments is more than twice that for the former.
Another interesting fact concerning the judgments of the time-intervals is that certain numerals occur in the last place of a judgment more frequently than we should expect if their occurrence depended on random guessing. Tables 3 and 4 exhibit the results of an analysis of the data made for the purpose of studying this fact. In Table 3 the frequency of occurrence of the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, etc., in the last place of the male judgments is given for each filling under the four intervals. For example, the digit 0 occurred in the last place of the male judgments for the interval reading 36 seconds 98 times, as we learn by referring to the first line and third row of the second column of Table 3.
Examination of Tables 3 and 4 shows at once the marked preference of the subjects for 0 and 5. The percentage of male judgments which end in 0 is 41.50; of female 58.51. Similarly the percentages of occurrence of the digit 5 for the males is 24.41, and for the females 23.11. Only two of the other digits (2 and 8) occur with a frequency of over 5%.
Among the 4014 male judgments 0 occurred as a final digit 1666 times, 5, 980 times. Among the 4375 female judgments 0 occurred 2560 times, 5, 1011 times. In the male judgments 0 occurred about four times as often as it would in random guessing; in the female, almost six times as often.
Comparison of Tables 3 and 4 indicates that the occurrence of 0 is 17.10% greater for the females, while that of 5 is 1.30% greater for the males. The sum of the percentages of occurrence of 0 and 5 for the males is 65.91, therefore the probability that a male judgment ends in one of these digits is almost twice that in favor of any other digit. For the females the sum of the same percentages is 81.62, and the probability of occurrence of 0 or 5 is therefore more than four times that of the other eight digits.
Tables 3 and 4 show that even numbers occur more frequently than uneven as final digits. Of the total number of judgments 2461 (3063)[127] end with even digits and 1553 (1312) with uneven.