00:01
What do we mean by the experimental group? so when you're running an experiment, you split your subjects into two groups, the experimental and the control.
00:15
And you keep these groups as similar as possible, except for one single difference.
00:20
The experimental gets whatever you're looking at.
00:24
So if you're testing a drug, the control group gets a placebo, and the experimental group gets the treatment.
00:35
So why do you do this? well, it's because you want to make sure that whatever you're doing is responsible for the results.
00:44
So if you did not have a control group and you gave the treatment to people and you saw results, how can you be certain it was caused by the treatment? perhaps it was caused just by the placebo effect, which is where people get things like pain relief from just being given saline or a sugar pill because of the psychological effects, or perhaps it could be something else...