Shape of a probability distribution
In statistics, the concept of the shape of a probability distribution arises in questions of finding an appropriate distribution to use to model the statistical properties of a population, given a sample from that population. The shape of a distribution may be considered either descriptively, using terms such as "J-shaped", or numerically, using quantitative measures such as skewness and kurtosis.
Considerations of the shape of a distribution arise in statistical
Descriptions of shape
The shape of a distribution will fall somewhere in a continuum where a flat distribution might be considered central and where types of departure from this include: mounded (or unimodal), U-shaped, J-shaped, reverse-J shaped and multi-modal.
See also
Notes
- ^ Yule & Kendall (1950): Chapter 4 — Frequency Distributions
References
- Yule, G.U., Kendall, M.G. (1950) An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics, 14th Edition (5th Impression, 1968), Griffin, London.
- den Dekker A. J., Sijbers J., (2014) "Data distributions in magnetic resonance images: a review[dead link]", Physica Medica