Imagine that the correlation between the number of hours a child watches tv in a week and his/her score on a common measure of sustained attention (The CPT - Continuous Performance Test) is - .48. The CPT is scaled so that higher scores indicate better attention. The mean of the tv hours distribution is 18.61 (s = 4.92) and the mean on the CPT distribution is 36.97 (s = 14.28).
The sample consists of 36 Philadelphia school children between 8 and 12 years old.
17. Which of the following is the best interpretation for the correlation between the variables?
a. Children with poor attention tend to watch less t.v.
b. Watching t.v. causes these children to have poorer attention.
c. Watching t.v. causes these children to have better attention.
d. T.v watching and attention skills share common variance.
e. T.v watching and attention skills in these children stem from the same underlying cause, which is probably genetic.