Movie actors who win an Oscar usually can command a greater fee for their next motion picture. Does winning an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences award (aka, an Oscar) lead to long-term mortality for movie actors? In an article in the Annals of Internal Medicine (May 15, 2001), researchers sampled 762 Academy Award winners and matched each one with another actor of the same sex who was in the same winning film and was born in the same era. The life expectancy (age) of each pair of actors was compared.
a. Explain why the data should be analyzed as a paired difference experiment.
b. Set up the null hypothesis for a test to compare the mean life expectancies of Academy Award winners and non-winners.
c. The sample mean life expectancies of Academy Award winners and non-winners were reported as 79.7 years and 75.8 years, respectively. The p-value for comparing the two population means was reported as p = .003. Interpret this value in the context of the problem.