The Lady Tasting Tea

Fishers Exact Test

Time:

1920s

Place

Cambridge, England

Setting:

An afternoon tea party at the University

Claim:

I can tell whether the milk is poured first

and the tea is added next, or whether the tea is poured first and
the milk is added to the tea.

Fisher was at the party!

Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher was a British
statistician
The most influential statistician so far
Randomization, variance, the null hypothesis,
maximum likelihoods all these are tools used by
every scientists today; we owe them all to Fisher.
He almost single-handedly created the foundations
of modern statistics. Significance, 2013

Be careful what you claim if you are at a

party with Dr. Fisher!

Brief digression:
Was there really a lady tasting tea?

When I first heard this story, I thought it was apocryphal (made up). I thought
Fisher was just using it as an example.
But I have come across some accounts that claim the story is real, although
the accounts do not always agree on all the details.

In David Salsburgs book: The Lady Tasting Tea

In a recent article by Stephen Senn in Significance

The tea party took place in Cambridge,

England.
Late 1920s
A group of university dons, their wives, and
some guests were sitting around an outdoor
table for afternoon tea.
Fisher does not describe the outcome of the
experiment that sunny afternoon in
Cambridge, but Professor Smith told me that
the lady identified every single one of the cups
correctly.

The tea party took place in Rothamsted research

station, just north of London, England.
Three scientists were taking tea in the common
room at an agricultural research station one
afternoon in the early 1920s.
Fisher was there. Dr. Muriel Bristol, a researcher
who studied algae, was the lady. William Roach, a
biochemist, and the fianc of Ms Bristol.
Our experiment consists in mixing eight cups of tea .
. .

Fisher considers how to test the claim

Try one cup?
But 50% chance of
guessing correctly

Try two cups?

But then . . .just by guessing
Zero correct

25%

One correct

50%

Two correct

25%

Plan a number of trials

Arrange a number of cups
Fisher proposed 8 cups
Half with tea first
Half with milk first
Present them in random
order
Then have the lady taste

them and make her

decisions

Taste the tea and make a decision

Tea first

Milk first

(Put four cups here)

(Put four cups here)

Taste the tea and make a decision

Tea first

Milk first

(Put four cups here)

(Put four cups here)

Now tally the results

How many did she identify correctly?

What really happened first

Here is one
possibility
The
ladys
guess

Milk
Milk

Tea

Tea

So she was mostly

correct!

What are all the possibilities?

All
incorrect

0
4

4
0

Evenly?

1
3

3
1

Success!

3
1

1
3

4
0

0
4

Fisher used the hypergeometric

distribution to figure out the probabilities

P (of an arrangement)

(a+b)! (c+d)! (a+c)! (b+d)!

= --------------------------------N! a! b! c! d!

Lets try this for one possible outcome: What is the probability
of getting six out of eight correct? (Just by chance)

Notation for the

cells

P (of an arrangement)

a
c

b
d

Here the results

show a total of
six correct

(a+b)! (c+d)! (a+c)! (b+d)!

= --------------------------------N! a! b! c! d!

(4x3x2x1) (4x3x2x1) (4x3x2x1) (4x3x2x1)

= --------------------------------------------------(8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1) (3x2x1) (1) (1) (3x2x1)

3
1

1
3
! = factorial notation

P (of an arrangement)

(4)! (4)! (4)! (4)!

= -----------------------8! 3! 1! 1! 3!

= 0.229

The probability of getting this

set of results just by chance.

0
4

4
0

p=.014

1
3

3
1

2
2

p=.229

2
2

p=.514

3
1

1
3

p=.229

4
0

p=.014

Chances of success in the tea-tasting study

1
0.9
0.8

Probability

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0

4
Number of successes

0
4

And now . . .
We use Fishers
Exact test in
many situations
beyond tea
tasting!