Researchers at Alion Science Corporation and New Mexico State University collaborated on a study of how air traffic controllers respond to false alarms (Human Factors, August 2009). The researchers theorize that the high rate of false alarms regarding mid-air collisions leads to the “cry wolf” effect, i.e., the tendency for air traffic controllers to ignore true alerts in the future. The investigation examined data on a random sample of 437 conflict alerts. Each alert was first classified as a “true” or “false” alert. Then, each was classified according to whether or not there was a human controller response to the alert. A summary of the responses is provided in the accompanying table. Do the data indicate that the response rate of air traffic controllers to mid-air collision alarms differs for true and false alerts? Test using α = .05. What inference can you make concerning the “cry wolf” effect?

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True alert False alert Totals No Response 3 37 40 Response 231 166 397 Totals 234 203 437