Overlapping CIs vs t-tests?

Suppose a medical researcher wants to compare two groups on a
continuous variable. Instead of performing a t-test, the researcher
proposes to compute the 95% CI within each group, and to consider
whether these confidence intervals overlap.

Non-overlapping CI's would then be taken as a surrogate indicator of a
statistically significant mean difference between groups.

Clearly this is not ideal, but my question is whether it is acceptable
as an expedient device -- would it give results in the "general
ballpark" of results gotten by a t-test? Would the only difference
between the two approaches depend on the difference between the t and
z distributions, for instance?

Thanks in advance.

John Uebersax PhD
.

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