ABSTRACT
Benjamin Whorf once proposed that the properties of a natural language influence the thought processes of the speakers of that language—that linguistic structures are the molds into which molten thoughts are poured, making some thoughts almost impossible and others almost inevitable. Statistical analysis is probably the most pervasive methodological tool in psychological research, often providing a common set of assumptions that span various sub-disciplines, such as personality, social, perception, and cognition. One common type of statistical analysis is the Analysis of Variance—the ANOVA. The ANOVA is of course a special case of multiple regression. However, the conceptual difference between the two statistical tools may be larger than their formal mathematical relation would suggest. Regression techniques are convenient for exploring interval or ratio variables, those that have a continuous, or quantitative, underlying dimension. The few examples of regression analysis that already exist in the psycholinguistics literature suggest one way in which the tool has a subtle influence on its users.
