Probit Analysis Overviewsee also
Probit Analysis OverviewA probit study consists of imposing a stress (or stimulus) on a number of units, then recording whether the unit failed or not. Probit analysis differs from accelerated life testing in that the response data is binary (the unit fails or it does not fail), rather than an actual failure time.
In the engineering sciences, a common experiment would be destructive inspecting. Suppose you are testing how well submarine hull materials hold up when exposed to underwater explosions. You subject the materials to various magnitudes of explosions, then record whether or not the hull cracked. In the life sciences, a common experiment would be the bioassay, where you subject organisms to various levels of a stress and record whether or not they survive.
Probit analysis can answer these kinds of questions: For each hull material, what shock level cracks 10% of the hulls? What concentration of a pollutant kills 50% of the fish? Or, at a given pesticide application, what's the probability that an insect dies?