urn model

a thought experiment in which objects of interest (e.g., people, events) are represented as colored balls placed in an urn or other container. In imagination, the experimenter randomly removes one ball from the urn, notes its color, and places it back before repeating the process; the goal is to determine the probability of drawing one color or another. The urn model is a convenient way to calculate certain basic probabilities using conditional probabilities.

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Psychology term of the day

February 16th 2025

cause

1. an event or state that brings about another (its effect).

2. in Aristotelian and rationalist philosophy, an entity or event that is a requirement for another entity or event’s coming to be. Aristotle proposed that there were four types of cause—material, formal, efficient, and final. In the case of a sculpture, for example, the material cause is the stone or metal from which it is made, the formal cause is the form or structure that it takes, the efficient cause is the sculptor, and the final cause is the sculptor’s aim or purpose in making it. —causal adj.