Title

Empirical Statistics .5. Evidence On The Extent Of The Steepness Bias In Visual Estimation Of Trends

Authors

Authors

C. D. Bailey

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

Percept. Mot. Skills

Keywords

Psychology, Experimental

Abstract

The existence of a pervasive and pronounced steepness bias in visually fitting a line to data in a scattergraph was investigated. 262 undergraduate business students were asked to fit lines visually to scattergraphs, to correspond to a least squares regression fit; These visually estimated lines strongly overestimated the steepness of the actual trend. As visual inspection of data is an important step for the detection of linear trends and outliers prior to regression analysis, this bias in subjective perception of the line may result in inappropriate deletion or retention of outliers, transferring the subjective bias into the results of least squares regression. In addition, textbooks on management accounting discuss the use of visually fitted lines to estimate cost behavior.

Journal Title

Perceptual and Motor Skills

Volume

82

Issue/Number

3

Publication Date

1-1-1996

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

731

Last Page

734

WOS Identifier

WOS:A1996UP56000002

ISSN

0031-5125

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