2.

6 Conditional Probability, Independence, and the Product Rule 63

Definition 2.10: The conditional probability of B, given A, denoted by P (B|A), is defined by

P (A ∩ B)
P (B|A) = , provided P (A) > 0.
P (A)
As an additional illustration, suppose that our sample space S is the population
of adults in a small town who have completed the requirements for a college degree.
We shall categorize them according to gender and employment status. The data
are given in Table 2.1.

Table 2.1: Categorization of the Adults in a Small Town

Employed Unemployed Total
Male 460 40 500
Female 140 260 400
Total 600 300 900

One of these individuals is to be selected at random for a tour throughout the

country to publicize the advantages of establishing new industries in the town. We
shall be concerned with the following events:
M: a man is chosen,
E: the one chosen is employed.
Using the reduced sample space E, we find that
460 23
P (M |E) = = .
600 30
Let n(A) denote the number of elements in any set A. Using this notation,
since each adult has an equal chance of being selected, we can write
n(E ∩ M ) n(E ∩ M )/n(S) P (E ∩ M )
P (M |E) = = = ,
n(E) n(E)/n(S) P (E)

where P (E ∩ M ) and P (E) are found from the original sample space S. To verify
this result, note that
600 2 460 23
P (E) = = and P (E ∩ M ) = = .
900 3 900 45
Hence,
23/45 23
P (M |E) = = ,
2/3 30
as before.

Example 2.34: The probability that a regularly scheduled flight departs on time is P (D) = 0.83;
the probability that it arrives on time is P (A) = 0.82; and the probability that it
departs and arrives on time is P (D ∩ A) = 0.78. Find the probability that a plane
64 Chapter 2 Probability

(a) arrives on time, given that it departed on time, and (b) departed on time, given
that it has arrived on time.
Solution : Using Definition 2.10, we have the following.
(a) The probability that a plane arrives on time, given that it departed on time,
is
P (D ∩ A) 0.78
P (A|D) = = = 0.94.
P (D) 0.83
(b) The probability that a plane departed on time, given that it has arrived on
time, is
P (D ∩ A) 0.78
P (D|A) = = = 0.95.
P (A) 0.82
The notion of conditional probability provides the capability of reevaluating the
idea of probability of an event in light of additional information, that is, when it
is known that another event has occurred. The probability P (A|B) is an updating
of P (A) based on the knowledge that event B has occurred. In Example 2.34, it
is important to know the probability that the flight arrives on time. One is given
the information that the flight did not depart on time. Armed with this additional
information, one can calculate the more pertinent probability P (A|D ), that is,
the probability that it arrives on time, given that it did not depart on time. In
many situations, the conclusions drawn from observing the more important condi-
tional probability change the picture entirely. In this example, the computation of
P (A|D ) is
P (A ∩ D ) 0.82 − 0.78
P (A|D ) = 
= = 0.24.
P (D ) 0.17
As a result, the probability of an on-time arrival is diminished severely in the
presence of the additional information.

Example 2.35: The concept of conditional probability has countless uses in both industrial and
biomedical applications. Consider an industrial process in the textile industry in
which strips of a particular type of cloth are being produced. These strips can be
defective in two ways, length and nature of texture. For the case of the latter, the
process of identification is very complicated. It is known from historical information
on the process that 10% of strips fail the length test, 5% fail the texture test, and
only 0.8% fail both tests. If a strip is selected randomly from the process and a
quick measurement identifies it as failing the length test, what is the probability
that it is texture defective?
Solution : Consider the events
L: length defective, T : texture defective.
Given that the strip is length defective, the probability that this strip is texture
defective is given by
P (T ∩ L) 0.008
P (T |L) = = = 0.08.
P (L) 0.1
Thus, knowing the conditional probability provides considerably more information
than merely knowing P (T ).
2.6 Conditional Probability, Independence, and the Product Rule 65

Independent Events
In the die-tossing experiment discussed on page 62, we note that P (B|A) = 2/5
whereas P (B) = 1/3. That is, P (B|A) = P (B), indicating that B depends on
A. Now consider an experiment in which 2 cards are drawn in succession from an
ordinary deck, with replacement. The events are defined as
A: the first card is an ace,
B: the second card is a spade.
Since the first card is replaced, our sample space for both the first and the second
draw consists of 52 cards, containing 4 aces and 13 spades. Hence,
13 1 13 1
P (B|A) = = and P (B) = = .
52 4 52 4
That is, P (B|A) = P (B). When this is true, the events A and B are said to be
independent.
Although conditional probability allows for an alteration of the probability of an
event in the light of additional material, it also enables us to understand better the
very important concept of independence or, in the present context, independent
events. In the airport illustration in Example 2.34, P (A|D) differs from P (A).
This suggests that the occurrence of D influenced A, and this is certainly expected
in this illustration. However, consider the situation where we have events A and
B and

P (A|B) = P (A).

In other words, the occurrence of B had no impact on the odds of occurrence of A.

Here the occurrence of A is independent of the occurrence of B. The importance
of the concept of independence cannot be overemphasized. It plays a vital role in
material in virtually all chapters in this book and in all areas of applied statistics.

Definition 2.11: Two events A and B are independent if and only if

P (B|A) = P (B) or P (A|B) = P (A),

assuming the existences of the conditional probabilities. Otherwise, A and B are

dependent.

The condition P (B|A) = P (B) implies that P (A|B) = P (A), and conversely.
For the card-drawing experiments, where we showed that P (B|A) = P (B) = 1/4,
we also can see that P (A|B) = P (A) = 1/13.

The Product Rule, or the Multiplicative Rule

Multiplying the formula in Definition 2.10 by P (A), we obtain the following im-
portant multiplicative rule (or product rule), which enables us to calculate