Abstract
Buckalew and Pearson (1983) termed the failure to detect a nonmonotonic relationship with a rank-order correlation as “spurious nonsignificance. ” Their hypothetical set of data was found to be nonrandom by a one-sample runs test and then was summarized by two rhos. Three other methods of testing for nonmonotonic relationships—Edgington’s (1961, 1969) trend test and two graphical tests (runs and point-pairs) of general association by Quenouille (1952, 1959) — were described and applied to the Buckalew-Pearson example. Finally, their data were summarized by a sequential correlation coefficient, psi, which is an index of general association. Psi, which was devised by Quenouille (1952), is a nonparametric version of eta.
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Wike, E.L. “Spurious nonsignificance” with rank correlation: Some alternative methods and a coefficient of general association. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 21, 260–262 (1983). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334704
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334704