(I’m not sure offhand how to adjust for say, improving ability over time, which seems like it could be a factor over the course of 800 games.)
After finishing reading it, I wondered ‘how much variation was there in score over the course of the attempts’? It is a game of chance, after all.
To rescue the hypothesis that it matters, you’d either have to find that it affects other people more than it does me (why would it?)
It seems unlikely, but a skeptic could say:
How do we know your air quality measuring device is any good (or that air quality didn’t fluctuate over that time frame, i.e. a continuous graph of it over the interval is relevant—larger if we figure changes in air quality lag in effects on cognition*).***
*This seems somewhat sensible. Do you get cancer immediately after the first time you smoke? (Also, I haven’t read that study, but if researchers went to different places, took a reading of air quality, then measured how people performed in different environments that experiment participants were in long term, then air quality might have powerful but slow, over time effects on cognition.)
You played the game while you were feeling well, or weren’t busy. That self selection affects the results. because the level at which you perform well conditional on that screens out the effect of air quality.**
**This would require you to be very good at predicting how well you will do, or ‘enthusiasm playing games’ to have a stronger effect on performance than air quality within the thresholds. On the up side the test for this is...a randomized trial. (Oh no, however will anyone be able to stand such a terribly unethical form of experimentation? Forced to play a game, over and over again, 800 times!)
***Is continuous statistics a thing, or is variation just small, so a regression need only applied? (I’m really curious about how long you have to be in a place with low air quality for it to take effect as well (if that is how it works), which involves measurements well in advance.)
My first thought was:
Did you keep a record of time?
(I’m not sure offhand how to adjust for say, improving ability over time, which seems like it could be a factor over the course of 800 games.)
After finishing reading it, I wondered ‘how much variation was there in score over the course of the attempts’? It is a game of chance, after all.
It seems unlikely, but a skeptic could say:
How do we know your air quality measuring device is any good (or that air quality didn’t fluctuate over that time frame, i.e. a continuous graph of it over the interval is relevant—larger if we figure changes in air quality lag in effects on cognition*).***
*This seems somewhat sensible. Do you get cancer immediately after the first time you smoke? (Also, I haven’t read that study, but if researchers went to different places, took a reading of air quality, then measured how people performed in different environments that experiment participants were in long term, then air quality might have powerful but slow, over time effects on cognition.)
You played the game while you were feeling well, or weren’t busy. That self selection affects the results. because the level at which you perform well conditional on that screens out the effect of air quality.**
**This would require you to be very good at predicting how well you will do, or ‘enthusiasm playing games’ to have a stronger effect on performance than air quality within the thresholds. On the up side the test for this is...a randomized trial. (Oh no, however will anyone be able to stand such a terribly unethical form of experimentation? Forced to play a game, over and over again, 800 times!)
***Is continuous statistics a thing, or is variation just small, so a regression need only applied? (I’m really curious about how long you have to be in a place with low air quality for it to take effect as well (if that is how it works), which involves measurements well in advance.)