<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><!DOCTYPE article  PUBLIC '-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN'  'http://www.docbook.org/xml/4.4/docbookx.dtd'><article><articleinfo><title>FAQ/Combinatorics</title><revhistory><revision><revnumber>21</revnumber><date>2015-09-14 13:54:53</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>20</revnumber><date>2015-07-01 15:44:47</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>19</revnumber><date>2015-07-01 13:56:37</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>18</revnumber><date>2015-07-01 12:29:06</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>17</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 15:17:29</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>16</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 13:44:44</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>15</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 13:43:59</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>14</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 11:34:08</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>13</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 11:31:55</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>12</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 11:31:22</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>11</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 11:31:11</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>10</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 10:30:14</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>9</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 10:29:25</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>8</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 10:29:04</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>7</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 10:28:29</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>6</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 10:24:46</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>5</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 10:21:43</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>4</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 10:19:02</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>3</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 10:18:34</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>2</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 10:17:15</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>1</revnumber><date>2015-06-30 10:16:08</date><authorinitials>PeterWatson</authorinitials></revision></revhistory></articleinfo><section><title>Repetition probabilities</title><para>Suppose we have a sequence of length 6 (k) taken from a possible 92 (K) stimuli and wish to consider the probability of stimulus repetition in a randomly drawn sequence of length n.  We consider two probabilities, below, concerning repetition of (i) a single stimulus and (ii) an entire sequence of stimuli. </para><para>The probability of any of the six of the 92 stimuli repeating in a randomly drawn sequence of length six  </para><para>= 1 – [(92 x 91 x 90 x 89 x 88 x 87) / $$92<superscript>6 </superscript>$$ ] = 0.15  </para><para>= 1 – (number of sequences of length six which have no repetition of any of the 92 stimuli e.g. ABCDEF) / (total number of possible sequences of length 6 chosen from 92 stimuli). </para><para><ulink url="https://lsr-wiki-02.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/statswiki/FAQ/Combinatorics/statswiki/FAQ/combinatorics/mreps#">We can similarly work out probabilities for 1,2,3,4 and 5 repetitions (from Laurence Shaw and Daniel Molinari)</ulink> taking into account that there can be multiple instances of a repetition in a sequence e.g. the sequence AABBCD represents two instances of a single repetition (of A and B). </para><para>Another repetition which we may be interested in is the probability of at least one entire sequence of length 6 taken from 92 stimuli repeating in n independent draws: </para><para>This equals 1 – P(no repetition of any sequence in the n draws)  </para><para>= 1 – $$ Product(i=0, n-1) [92<superscript>6 </superscript> – i] / [92 <superscript>6 </superscript>] $$ </para><para>since there are $$92<superscript>6 </superscript>$$  distinct sequences of 92 stimuli of length 6 and once we have used one sequence we don’t want to use it again. </para><para>Using the result from <ulink url="http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/04/16/random-number-sequence-overlap/">this website</ulink> the above probability </para><para>= 1 -  $$( [92<superscript>6 </superscript> !] / [(92<superscript>6 </superscript>)<superscript>n </superscript> (92<superscript>6 </superscript> - n)!] ) </para></section></article>