4.

2 Shapes of Distributions
! Symmetry
" Symmetrical or asymmetrical
" If symmetrical, mounded or flat?
! Skew
" Right, left
! Peaks or Modes
" Unimodal, bimodal, multiple peaks
! Spread
" Narrow spread or wide spread
1
 Histogram of Octane
Histogram of Octane Rating

10
9
8
Symmetrical 7
Frequency

6
One peak 5
4
3
2
1
0

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96
Octane

A distribution is symmetric if its left half is a mirror

image of its right half. 2
Flat or Uniform

Figure 4.4

Perfectly flat

3
Flat or Uniform

Not perfectly flat, but

close. We want to
describe the general
shape of the distribution.

4
Not symmetrical

! A distribution that is not symmetric must have

values that tend to be more spread out on one
side than on the other. In this case, we say that
the distribution is skewed.

5
Figure 4.7 (a) Skewed to the left (left-skewed): The mean
and median are less than the mode. (b) Skewed to the right
(right-skewed): The mean and median are greater than the
mode. (c) Symmetric distribution: The mean, median, and
mode are the same.
6
Right-skewed
pH of Pork Loins

80

70

60

50
Frequency

40

30

20

10

5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0

pH

7
Right-skewed ‘ski slope’ to
Salary the right
60
Frequency

40
20
0

50000 100000 150000

sarlar(dollars)
8
Left-skewed
‘ski slope’ to Flexibility Index of Young Adult Men
the left 20

15
Frequency

10

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Flexibility Index

9
Right-skewed or Left-skewed

! A distribution is left-skewed if its values

are more spread out on the left side.

! A distribution is right-skewed if its values

are more spread out on the right side.

10
Number of Modes
! If there are numerous obvious peaks, we
say there are multiple modes.
" One peak # unimodal
" Two peaks # bimodal
" More than two peaks # multiple modes

! Some peaks can be ‘major’ peaks and

some can be ‘minor’ peaks
11
Multiple Peaks
Major peak Size of Diamonds (carats)

15

Minor peak
10
Frequency

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

Size (carats)

12
 Time-Series Diagrams – example
Homes sold in Iowa City by
zip code and month

Multiple peaks

Year (data by the month) 13

Measures of Center
! These help describe a distribution, too.
! A typical or representative value.
" Mean, Median, Mode
! Summary of the whole batch of numbers.
! For symmetric distributions – easy.

14
Histogram of Octane
Histogram of Octane Rating

10
9
8
7
Frequency

6
5
4
3
2
1
0

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96
Octane Center

15
Spread
! Variation matters.
" Tightly
clustered?
" Spread out?
" Low and high values?

Variation describes how widely data are

spread out about the center of a data set.

16
Spread
! Variation matters.

0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10

17
Comparing Distributions
! How do the distributions compare in terms
of…
" Shape?
" Center?
" Spread?

18
Workout Times: Men
5

Count
3

30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

19
Workout Times: Women
5

Count
3

30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

20
 5

Count
3

2 Men
1

30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Count
3

1
Women
30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

21
To describe a distribution, use…

! Shape
! Center
! Spread

22