Posterior probability

A posterior probability is the probability assigned to an event by the posterior distribution after conditioning on the observed data.

For two exhaustive mutually exclusive models, posterior odds are the ratio of their posterior probabilities. Bayes' theorem givesThe second factor is the Bayes factor, formed from model prior predictive distributions. Evidence favouring one model need not make that model's posterior probability exceed one half if its prior probability was sufficiently small.

When the prior odds of a real effect are $R$, a study's Type I error is $\alpha$, and its statistical power is $1-\beta$, a positive report updates those odds to $R(1-\beta )/\alpha$. This follows directly from Bayes' theorem. A small false-positive rate does not itself make the effect's posterior probability high: the prior odds and power also matter. The posterior exceeds one half exactly when $R>\alpha /(1-\beta )$.