The process you describe will generate a binomial distribution with
mean = 0 and a standard deviation of the distribution equal to
sqrt(5). To see this, let B_5(x) be the binomial distribution
describing the probability that x heads will occur in 5 throws of a
coin. The probability distribution generated by the process in your
question is given by: P(y) = (probability of a head in the 5th toss) *
(probability of |y| heads in the previous 5 tosses) = 0.5 * B_5(|y|),
where y can take on all possible values integer values from -5 to 5,
and |y| is the absolute value of y.
P(y) is thus seen to be the standard binomial distribution B_5(x),
stretched out by a factor of two (i.e., the range of possible outcomes
goes from -5 to 5, instead of from 0 to 5). The standard deviation of
this distribution is simply twice the standard deviation of the usual
binomial distribution, or 2 * sqrt(5*.5*.5) = sqrt(5).
The standard deviation of the mean is given by the standard deviation
of the population divided by the square root of the number of trials.
If the number of trials = 10, then SD-mean = sqrt(5)/sqrt(10) =
1/sqrt(2). |