Cumming Geoff, Finch Sue
School of Psychological Science, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Am Psychol. 2005 Feb-Mar;60(2):170-80. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.60.2.170.
Wider use in psychology of confidence intervals (CIs), especially as error bars in figures, is a desirable development. However, psychologists seldom use CIs and may not understand them well. The authors discuss the interpretation of figures with error bars and analyze the relationship between CIs and statistical significance testing. They propose 7 rules of eye to guide the inferential use of figures with error bars. These include general principles: Seek bars that relate directly to effects of interest, be sensitive to experimental design, and interpret the intervals. They also include guidelines for inferential interpretation of the overlap of CIs on independent group means. Wider use of interval estimation in psychology has the potential to improve research communication substantially.
在心理学中更广泛地使用置信区间（CI），尤其是在图表中作为误差线，是一个值得期待的发展。然而，心理学家很少使用置信区间，并且可能对它们理解得不够透彻。作者讨论了带有误差线的图表的解读，并分析了置信区间与统计显著性检验之间的关系。他们提出了七条直观规则来指导对带有误差线的图表进行推断性使用。这些规则包括一般原则：寻找与感兴趣的效应直接相关的误差线，对实验设计敏感，并解读区间。它们还包括关于对独立组均值的置信区间重叠进行推断性解读的指导方针。在心理学中更广泛地使用区间估计有可能显著改善研究交流。
