STAT 3115

09/04/2015

2.4 Conditional Probability (part 1)

Conditional Probability
Example 7.
Draw a card from a deck of 52 cards, what is the probability of getting a heart? Suppose
now we already know that the card is not a club, what is the probability of getting a
heart? If we don't know any other information, the probability is 13 52. Now, given that
the card is not a club, the probability becomes 1 3.
Conditional probability is used to model the probability of events when certain
information is provided.

Definition.

For any two events A and B with P(B) > 0, the conditional probability of A given B
has occurred denoted P(A|B), is defined by
P(A B)
P(A|B) =
P(B)

STAT 3115

09/04/2015

General Multiplication Rule

Rearranging the terms, we get the product rule for P(A B):
P(A B) = P(A|B)P(B)

Example 8.

Let A be the event of getting a hear, B be the event of getting a 4. What is the conditional
probability of A given B?

Example 9
Deal 2 cards from a deck of 52 cards (well shuffled, without replacement). Find the
probability that they are both hearts. What if we deal 3, and there are 2 hearts and a club?

STAT 3115

09/04/2015

Example 10
The accompanying table gives information on the type of coffee selected by someone
purchasing a single cup at a particular airport kiosk.
Small

Medium

Large

Regular 14% 20% 26%

Decaf 20% 10% 10%
Consider randomly selecting such a coffee purchaser.
a) What is the probability that the individual purchased a small cup? A cup of decaf
coffee?
b) If we learn that the selected individual purchased a small cup, what now is the
probability that he/she chose decaf coffee, and how would you interpret this
probability?
c) If we learn that the selected individual purchased decaf, what now is the probability
that a small size was selected, and how does this compare to the corresponding
unconditional probability of (a)?