Generalizing to a Language Population

Abstract

Many studies of verbal behavior have little scientific point if their conclusions have to be restricted to the specific language materials that were used in the experiment. It has not been customary, however, to perform significance tests that permit generalization beyond these specific materials, and thus there is little statistical evidence that such studies could be successfully replicated if a different sample of language materials were used. Three tests are described that will allow generalization to a population of language materials.