Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Crowdsourced Sampling Of A Composite Random Variable: Analysis, Simulation, And Experimental Test, Mark P. Silverman

Faculty Scholarship

A composite random variable is a product (or sum of products) of statistically distributed quantities. Such a variable can represent the solution to a multi-factor quantitative problem submitted to a large, diverse, independent, anonymous group of non-expert respondents (the “crowd”). The objective of this research is to examine the statistical distribution of solutions from a large crowd to a quantitative problem involving image analysis and object counting. Theoretical analysis by the author, covering a range of conditions and types of factor variables, predicts that composite random variables are distributed log-normally to an excellent approximation. If the factors in a problem …