hypothesis testing by example

A hypothesis testing problem

In a data science course that I am currently TA-ing, we just gave out the following problem. Suppose you have the following six sequences of coin flips. Exactly one sequence is generated by repeatedly flipping a fair coin. Which sequence is it?

sequences <- c(
  A = "HTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHHTHTHTHTHTHTHTTHTHTHTHTHTHTHHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHHTTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHHTHTHTHTH",
  B = "HHHTHTTTHHTHHTHHHTTTTHTHTHHTTHTHHHTHHTHTTTHTHHHTHTTTHTHTHHTHTHTTHTHHTHTHTTTHTHHHTHTHTTHTHTHHTHTHTHHHTHTTTHTHHTHTHTHHTTTHTHHTHHTTTTHTHTHHHTHTTHTHHTHTHTTHTHHTHTHHHTHHHTHTTTHTTHTTTHTHHHTHTHTTHTHHTHHTHTTT",
  C = "HHTHTHTTTHTHHHTHHTTTHTHHTHTTTHTHTHHTHTHTTHTHHHHHHTTTHTHTHHTHTTTHTHHTHTHTTTHTHHHTTHTTTHTHTHHHHTHTTHHTTTTTHTHHHTHTHTTTTTHHHTHHTHHTHHHTTTTHTHTHHHTHHTTTTTHTHHHTHTHTHTTTHTHHHTHTHTHTTHTHHTHTHTHTTTTHTHHHTHTH",
  D = "HTHHHHHHHTHTTHHTTHHHTHTHTTTHHTHHHTHHTTHTTTTTTTTTHTHHTTTTTHTHTHTHHTTHTTHTTTTTHHHTHTTTHTHTHHHTHTTTTHTHTHHTTHTHTTHHTHTHHHHTHTTHHTTHTTHTTHTHHHHHHTTTTTTHHHTTHTHHHHTTTHTTHHHTTHTHHTTTHHTHHTTTHTHHTHHHTHHTTHHH",
  E = "HHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHTTTHHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTTTHH",
  F = "TTHTTTHTTTTTTTHTHTHTHTTHTTHTHHTHHTTTHHTHTTTHTHHTHHHTHTTHHTHHTTHTHTTTTHTHTTTHHTTTTTTTTHTHHTTHTTTTTTHTHTHTHTTTHTTHHTTHTTTHHTTTHTTHTTTTHTTTTHHTTTHTHTHHHTTTTTTHTHHTTTTTTTTTTTTHHHTTTHHHTTTHTTTHTHTTHTTTTTHT"
)

In this post, I’ll walk through the problem and point out places where it’s easy to have misleading intuition. I encourage readers to try to solve the problem on their own before reading the post.

Alright, onward. To make the problem a little more concrete, let’s start by visualizing the coin flip sequences.

Code

library(tidyverse)
library(glue)

theme_set(theme_classic(16))

observed_nested <- tibble(
  name = glue("Seq {LETTERS[1:6]}"),
  sequence = sequences
) |> 
  mutate(
    result = str_split(sequence, "")
  )

observed_long <- observed_nested  |> 
  select(-sequence) |> 
  unnest(c(result)) |> 
  group_by(name) |> 
  mutate(
    index = row_number()
  )

observed_long |> 
  ggplot(aes(x = index, y = result, group = name)) +
  geom_line(color = "grey") +
  geom_point(aes(color = result)) +
  scale_color_brewer(type = "qual") +
  facet_grid(rows = vars(name)) +
  labs(
    title = "Sequences of coin flips",
    subtitle = "Only one sequence was generated from fair and independent coin flips",
    caption = "Each sequence consists of 200 results, either 'heads' or 'tails'"
  ) +
  theme(
    legend.position = "none",
    axis.title = element_blank()
  )

Eye-balling it

Staring at the sequences, I notice a couple things at first:

• A always alternates between heads and tails, on every single flip
• E stays heads for a long time, then switches to tails for a long time, and then the cycle repeats
• All of the other cycles switch back and forth between heads and tails fairly often, with some long streaks of all heads or all tails as well

Immediately I think I can rule out A and E, because each flip appears to depend on the previous flips, and this shouldn’t happen when I repeatedly flip a fair coin. Hopefully, I can develop a test later on that will capture this intuition more quantitatively, but for now, I just rule out A and E.

There are some other patterns that look suspicious to me, but I’ve previously learned that my intuition about which sequences are random and which aren’t isn’t very good. Part of the challenge here is that I am mainly looking at non-random sequences in Figure 1, and this doesn’t tell me very much about which patterns are surprising under a random model.

So next I generate six sequences by repeatedly flipping a fair coin (from this point onward, when I refer to a “random sequence” or “a sequence from the null model”, I mean sequence of heads and tails generated by repeatedly flipping a fair coin).

Code

set.seed(27)

sample_sequence <- function() {
  outcomes <- c("H", "T")
  sample(outcomes, size = 200, replace = TRUE)
}

num_samples <- 6

long_fair <- tibble(
  result = map(1:num_samples, \(x) sample_sequence())
) |> 
  mutate(
    name = glue("Fair {LETTERS[1:num_samples]}")
  ) |> 
  unnest(c(result)) |> 
  group_by(name) |> 
  mutate(
    index = row_number()
  )

long_fair |> 
  ggplot(aes(x = index, y = result, group = name)) +
  geom_line(color = "grey") +
  geom_point(aes(color = result)) +
  scale_color_brewer(type = "qual") +
  facet_grid(rows = vars(name)) +
  labs(
    title = "Sequences of coin flips",
    subtitle = "Every sequence was generated generated from fair and independent coin flips",
    caption = "Each sequence consists of 200 results, either 'heads' or 'tails'"
  ) +
  theme(
    legend.position = "none",
    axis.title = element_blank()
  )

In light of these fair sequences, I can’t really eye-ball anything else that looks suspicious.

Counting heads

The next thing that comes to mind is that, if a coin is fair, then roughly half the flips should be heads and half should be tails. Since I know how to simulate sequences of repeatedly flipped fair coins, I’ll generate a bunch of sequences from this null model, and then compare the number of heads in the observed sequences to the number of heads in the simulated sequences.

count_heads <- function(results) {
  sum(results == "H")
}

sample_statistic_under_null <- function(test_statistic, num_samples = 1000) {
  map_dbl(1:num_samples, \(x) test_statistic(sample_sequence()))
}

null_distribution <- sample_statistic_under_null(count_heads)

observed_statistics <- observed_nested |> 
  mutate(
    statistic = map_dbl(result, count_heads)
  ) |> 
  select(name, statistic)

observed_statistics |> 
  mutate(
    null_sample = list(null_distribution)
  ) |> 
  unnest(c(null_sample)) |> 
  ggplot(aes(x = null_sample)) +
  geom_histogram(
    binwidth = 1,
    center = 0
  ) +
  geom_vline(aes(xintercept = statistic, color = name)) +
  facet_wrap(
    vars(name),
    scales = "free",
    nrow = 1
  ) +
  scale_color_brewer(palette = "Dark2") +
  scale_x_continuous(breaks = c(80, 100, 120)) +
  labs(
    title = "Number of heads in each sequence",
    subtitle = "compare to number of heads in random sequences (grey)"
  ) +
  theme(
    legend.position = "none",
    axis.title = element_blank()
  )

ci <- quantile(null_distribution, c(0.05, 0.95))

Now I observe that, in ninety percent of the sequences from a repeatedly flipped fair coin, the number of heads in the sequence is between the fifth percentile \(q_{0.05} =\) 89 and the ninety-fifth percentile \(q_{0.95} =\) 111. This means that it is unlikely that I will see less than 89 heads or more than 111 heads in a random sequence.

library(gt)

head_count_stats <- observed_statistics |> 
  mutate(
    expected = mean(null_distribution),
    observed_quantile = map_dbl(statistic, \(stat) ecdf(null_distribution)(stat)),
    p_value = pmin(observed_quantile, 1 - observed_quantile),
    likelihood = 0.5^200,
    log_likelihood = 200 * log(0.5)
  )

head_count_stats |> 
  select(name, statistic) |> 
  gt() |> 
  cols_label(
    name = "Sequence",
    statistic = "Heads in sequence"
  )

Since sequence F has only 70 heads, it seems unlikely that sequence F comes from the null model of independent, fair coin flips.

The approach that I have demonstrated above is to compute a rejection region for a test statistic that contains my test statistic \(90\%\) of the time under the null model. This is not the only way to approach the problem. I could also ask, for each sequence, how often do I see a more extreme (i.e. larger or smaller) number of heads in random sequences. This is known as computing a p-value.

head_count_stats |> 
  select(name, p_value) |> 
  gt() |> 
  cols_label(
    name = "Sequence",
    p_value = "P-value"
  )

When the p-value is small, it means that the number of observed heads in a sequence is either much higher or much lower than typically seen in random sequences. In particular, a p-value of \(p\) (which should always be between zero and one) means that random sequences had as many heads as the mystery sequence only \(p \cdot 100\%\) of the time.

Intuitively, small p-values indicate that data is not compatible with a given model. In this case, the very small p-value for sequence \(F\) indicates that sequence \(F\) is not compatible the random sequence model for coin flips. Sequences \(A, B, C, D\) and to a lesser extent \(E\) are all compatible with the random sequence model.

head_count_stats |> 
  select(-p_value, -observed_quantile, -likelihood) |> 
  gt(
    caption = "Even though sequence C has exactly the expected number of heads under the null model, every single sequence is equally likely under the null model."
  ) |> 
  cols_label(
    name = "Sequence",
    statistic = "Heads in sequence",
    expected = "E[num heads|null model]",
    log_likelihood = "log P(data|null model)"
  )

Longest streak of heads in a row

Okay, so we tried one test and it helped us eliminate some options. But we would like to eliminate more. So let’s come up with a new feature to investigate (i.e. test statistic). Let’s look at the longest streak of heads in a sequence. Again, we simulate from the null model to find the null distribution of the test statistic, and plot the results below:

plot_test <- function(test_statistic) {
  
  null_distribution <- sample_statistic_under_null(test_statistic)
  
  observed_statistics <- observed_nested |> 
    mutate(
      statistic = map_dbl(result, test_statistic)
    ) |> 
    select(name, statistic)
  
  observed_statistics |> 
    mutate(
      null_sample = list(null_distribution)
    ) |> 
    unnest(c(null_sample)) |> 
    ggplot(aes(x = null_sample)) +
    geom_histogram(
      binwidth = 1,
      center = 0
    ) +
    geom_vline(aes(xintercept = statistic, color = name)) +
    facet_wrap(
      vars(name),
      scales = "free",
      nrow = 1
    ) +
    scale_color_brewer(palette = "Dark2") +
    theme(
      legend.position = "none",
      axis.title = element_blank()
    )
}  

longest_heads_subsequence <- function(results) {
  rle_encoded <- rle(results)
  head_sequence_indicators <- rle_encoded$values == "H"
  
  if (!any(head_sequence_indicators)) {
    warning("No head sequences!")
    return(NA)
  }
  
  heads_seq_lengths <- rle_encoded$lengths[head_sequence_indicators]
  max(heads_seq_lengths)
}

plot_test(longest_heads_subsequence) +
  labs(
    title = "Longest streak of heads in each sequence",
    subtitle = "compare to longest streaks of heads in random sequences (grey)"
  )

Here it looks like the longest streak of heads in sequences \(A, B\) and \(F\) is too short, and the long sequence of heads in sequence \(E\) is possibly too long. Let’s eliminate \(A, B, E\) and \(F\) for now and try figure out if \(C\) or \(D\) comes from the random sequence.

Some suspicious patterns

So now I go back to sequences \(C\) and \(D\) and stare at both of them for a while. I like thinking about streaks, because streaks encode dependence, testing for dependence across coin flips seems like a promising idea. Instead of considering the longest streak in the data, let’s consider the total number of streaks in each sequence. Coding this up and running the test yields the following results:

num_islands <- function(results) {
  rle_encoded <- rle(results)
  sum(table(rle_encoded$lengths))
}

plot_test(num_islands) +
  labs(
    title = "Total number of streaks",
    subtitle = "compare to frequency under null model (grey)"
  )

Based on this test we can reject sequence \(C\) since it seems to have too few streaks. This leaves us with a single remaining sequence, \(D\), which might be the random sequence.

But wait! Staring at the sequence \(D\), I realize that it contains the subsequence HTHHHHHHTTTTTTHHHTTHTHHHHTTTH, and this seems suspicious to me. So I decide to do one last test, where the test statistic is the number of occurrences of the subsequence HTHHHHHHTTTTTTHHHTTHTHHHHTTTH.

num_subseq <- function(results, subseq) {
  collapsed <- paste0(results, collapse = "")
  str_count(collapsed, subseq)
}

pattern1_count <- function(results) {
  num_subseq(results, subseq = "HTHHHHHHTTTTTTHHHTTHTHHHHTTTH")
}

plot_test(pattern1_count) +
  labs(
    title = "Frequency of sequence HTHHHHHHTTTTTTHHHTTHTHHHHTTTH",
    subtitle = "compare to frequency under null model (grey)"
  ) +
  scale_x_continuous(breaks = 0:1, expand = 0:1)

Now we reject sequence \(D\) as well, because it has the sequence HTHHHHHHTTTTTTHHHTTHTHHHHTTTH once, but under our null model, we never see this subsequence! At least, not frequently enough to appear in our simulations.