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Some people claimed that, because we were increasing confidence, the sample size n is increasing. That's one way to increase confidence in an interval of fixed size: if stays fixed, while n increases, then z must go up (meaning that confidence is increasing).
The other way to increase confidence that you've trapped the true value is to give a bigger interval (increase z).
The following table (thanks Wikipedia) illustrates the situation:
Actual condition | |||
---|---|---|---|
Present | Absent | ||
Test result |
Positive | Condition Present + Positive result = True Positive |
Condition absent + Positive result = False Positive Type I error |
Negative | Condition present + Negative result = False (invalid) Negative Type II error |
Condition absent + Negative result = True (accurate) Negative |
whereas |