Human Anatomy & Physiology I

Lab 2 Graphing styles & interpreting graphs

1. Scatter or bar? 2. Scatter or bar?

8
75

6
50
Ht,ft

,ms
a e
g

te
er

ra
v
A

s
ne
25

p
so
2

e
R
0 0
0 10 20 30
Sex
Temperature, °C

3. Scatter or bar? 4. Scatter or bar?

100 1.0

0.8
Probability of dying

75

0.6
O2 levels, %

50
0.4

25 0.2

0.0
0
Number of heart attacks
0 4 8 12

pH
Lab exercises 2.2
For each of the following data sets, which is the independent variable (X variable) and which is the
dependent variable (Y variable)?
1. You are testing the toxicity of a new drug. You administer different doses to groups of mice and
determine the percentage of the group that died as a result.
The two variables are:
i) Percentage of dead mice X axis or Y axis?
ii) Drug dosage X axis or Y axis?

2. You are following the crime rate in Columbus over the past year. You are counting the number of
crimes in each month.
The two variables are:
i) Month X axis or Y axis?
ii) Number of crimes X axis or Y axis?

3. You take all the crimes in Columbus in the past year and classify them according to type
(murder, robbery, assault, etc.)
The two variables are:
i) Type of crime X axis or Y axis?
ii) Number of that type of crime X axis or Y axis?

4. You are comparing three different cold remedies. You have volunteers with colds take one of the
remedies and you measure how much longer the cold lasts after taking the medicine.
The two variables are:
i) How much longer the cold lasts X axis or Y axis?
ii) Which cold remedy was used X axis or Y axis?
Lab exercises 2.3
Use the following schematic instructions to write out nine rules for designing graphs.

Rule demonstrated
Schematic representation of rule by example

300 60

200 40
Response, %

Response, %
100 20

0 0
0 250 500 750 1000 0 100 200 300

Time, s Time, s

60 60

40 40

Response, %
20 20

0 0
0 100 200 300 0 100 200 300

Time, s

400 330

320
300
Average Wt, kg

Average Wt, kg

310
200
300

100
290

0 280
A B C D E A B C D E

Treamtment Group Treamtment Group

60

49
Response, %
Response, %

35
40

21

7 20
20 110 200 290 0 100 200 300

Time, s Time, s
 Rule demonstrated
Schematic representation of rule by example

60

40
Response, %

Response, %
20

0
Time, s 0 100 200 300

Time, s

120 120

80 80
Response, %

Response, %
40 40

0 0
0 100 200 300 0 100 200 300

Time, s Time, s

400 400

300 300
Average Wt, kg

Average Wt, kg

200 200

100 100

0 0
A B C D E A B C D E

Treamtment Group Treamtment Group

400 120

300
80
Average Wt, kg

Response, %

200

40
100

0
0
0 100 200 300
A B
Time, s
Treamtment Group

120

80
Response, %

40

0
0 100 200 300

Time, s
 400

300
Average Wt, kg

200

100

0
A B

Treamtment Group
 Lab exercises 2.4
i. Plot the data below in the grid of squares provided. You will have two data sets, one for men and
one for women. Plot them both on the same axes.

ii. Keep in mind the rules established in earlier exercises for deciding on whether it should be a
scatter plot or bar graph, for determining which variable should be the X variable and which
should be the Y variable, and for the features of a well-designed graph.

iii. Design your graph so that you emphasize to the reader that you have concluded that for women
smoking is correlated to increase incidences of lung cancer regardless of which country they
come from, but that for men of different countries the relationship between smoking and
incidences of lung cancer is more complex.

iv. Here is the data. The grid where you will plot the data is on the next page.

Country Percentage of the population Deaths from lung cancer/ deaths per
who smoke in Averages 100,000
Males Females Males females
China 53.4 4.0 22.7 10.5
France 33.0 21.0 73.3 14.4
Malaysia 49.2 3.5 5.6 2.3
New Zealand 25.1 24.8 47.3 29.2
South Africa 43.8 11.7 13.8 5.4
Trinidad & Tobago 42.1 8.0 12.3 4.2
Lab exercises 2.4
Use the following guidelines to estimate the best-fitting straight line through the data in the three graphs
below and then draw in the best-fitting straight line with a ruler. Next to each graph, indicate what kind
of correlation, in general, you are looking at.
 The best-fitting straight line will have the maximal number of data points as close as possible to the
line.
 If there are a few data points that are far away from the line, that is okay as long as most of the other
data points are as close to the line as possible.
 Ideally there should be as many data points above the line as there are below it.
 It is better to have none of the data points actually on the line but most of them as close as possible
than to have a few points on the line but the rest of the points farther away than they would be in the
line were just moved a bit.
 Best-fitting lines do not have to go through (0,0) if the origin does not fit the rest of the data.
100

80
Type of correlation:

60

40

20

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

100

80
Type of correlation:

60

40

20

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

100

80
Type of correlation:
60

40

20

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
 Lab exercises 2.5
Use the following graph as an example to walk through the steps of figuring out how to interpret a
graph.

Figure 2.4. Data from a journal article by a research group at the University of Washington School
of Medicine (Weiss, et al. 2007. Lower extremity muscle size and strength and aerobic capacity
decrease with caloric restriction but not with exercise-induced weight loss. J Appl Physiol 102: 634-
640.)

The researchers were comparing weight loss from dieting (“caloric restriction”) to weight loss from
exercise. They had two groups, each consisting of 18 men and women in their fifties. The first group
were called the caloric restriction group and were put on a strict diet for three months. The second group
were called the exercise group and were put on an exercise regimen for three months. After the three
months, the researchers measured various indicators of strength in their test subjects. This graph is the
results of one of the researchers’ set of measurements.

i. Examine the graph. What does each data point represent?

ii. What is being measured on the X axis and what aspect of the study is it reporting?

iii. What is being measured on the Y axis and how is it an indicator of strength?
 iv. Why are the researchers interested in the correlations between these two variables in both the
exercise-only group and the diet-only group?

v. The best-fit line through the exercise data (EX) has a value of r2 = 0.13. What does tell you about the
relationship between exercising-induced weight loss and the changes in the size of the subjects’
thigh?

vi. Why doesn’t the best-fit line through the exercise data (EX) have a correlation coefficient of r2 =
0.0?

vii. The best-fit line through the dieting data (CR) has a negative slope and a correlation coefficient of r2
= 0.59. What does this tell you about the relationship between dieting-induced weight loss and
changes in the size of the subjects’ thighs?

viii. Why doesn’t the best-fit line though the dieting data (CR) have a correlation coefficient of r2 = 1.0?

ix. This graph only tells us definitive information about how weight loss via exercise or dieting effect
the size of the thigh muscles in these volunteers. But we can formulate more general hypotheses
about the effect of dieting-induced weight loss vs. exercise-induced weight loss on overall strength
based on these result. These more general hypotheses are not definitively supported yet, but they are
suggested by these results. What are these more general hypotheses?