Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 22, 2026

Genomic MRI - a Public Resource for Studying Sequence Patterns within Genomic DNA
Published on: May 9, 2011
On producing random binary sequences
Raymond S Nickerson1, Susan F Butler
1Tufts University, USA. r.nickerson@tufts.edu
Abstract:
This experiment addressed the opinion prevailing among researchers that people are poor at producing random binary sequences. Participants tried to produce sets of sequences of outcomes of imaginary coin tosses that could not be distinguished statistically from sets expected from actual coin tossing. The results generally support the conclusion that people are not very good at this task, although the distributional properties of the sets of sequences produced are qualitatively similar to those expected of sets produced by a random process. The results do not support the common finding that people consistently produce substantially more alternations and fewer repetitions than would be produced by chance, nor do they provide evidence of the pervasive operation of a gambler's fallacy manifesting itself in a tendency for an alternation to increase with the length of a preceding run.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Random Variables
Uppercase letters such as X or Y denote a random variable. Lowercase letters like x or y denote the value of a random variable. If X is a random variable, then X is written in words, and x is given as a number.
For example, let X = the...
Wald-Wolfowitz Runs Test I
The test works...
Random Sampling Method
RNA-seq
Before the discovery of RNA-seq, microarray-based methods and Sanger sequencing were used for transcriptome analysis. However, while microarray-based...
Next-generation Sequencing
Next-Generation Sequencing Methods
Although all next-generation methods use different technologies, they all share a set of standard features.
Wald-Wolfowitz Runs Test II
For binary data, runs are identified using symbols such as + and −, or equivalently, 1s and 0s. In...

