Nature and Nature journal authors, and indeed editors of the journals, have been in hot water with eagle-eyed readers in the past for publishing papers without proper definition of error bars. As a result, we produced a statistical checklist (including advice) for authors, as it became clear that there is widespread uncertainty about this statistical measure. Now, Cognitive Daily blog features an “error bar challenge”. Accept if you dare.

For the faint-hearted, here is a link to the Cognitive Daily post containing the answers. If you are not sure of your confidence intervals and standard deviations, or would like a brush-up, the two Cognitive Daily posts are very useful.