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The term central tendency dates from the late 1920s. [2] The most common measures of central tendency are the arithmetic mean, the median, and the mode. A middle tendency can be calculated for either a finite set of values or for a theoretical distribution, such as the normal distribution.
Like the statistical mean and median, the mode is a way of expressing, in a (usually) single number, important information about a random variable or a population. The numerical value of the mode is the same as that of the mean and median in a normal distribution, and it may be very different in highly skewed distributions.
The median of a symmetric unimodal distribution coincides with the mode. The median of a symmetric distribution which possesses a mean μ also takes the value μ. The median of a normal distribution with mean μ and variance σ 2 is μ. In fact, for a normal distribution, mean = median = mode.
For n = 1 or 2, the midrange and the mean are equal (and coincide with the median), and are most efficient for all distributions. For n = 3, the modified mean is the median, and instead the mean is the most efficient measure of central tendency for values of γ 2 from 2.0 to 6.0 as well as from −0.8 to 2.0.
The mean of a set of observations is the arithmetic average of the values; however, for skewed distributions, the mean is not necessarily the same as the middle value (median), or the most likely value (mode). For example, mean income is typically skewed upwards by a small number of people with very large incomes, so that the majority have an ...
If exactly one value is left, it is the median; if two values, the median is the arithmetic mean of these two. This method takes the list 1, 7, 3, 13 and orders it to read 1, 3, 7, 13. Then the 1 and 13 are removed to obtain the list 3, 7. Since there are two elements in this remaining list, the median is their arithmetic mean, (3 + 7)/2 = 5.
The normal distribution with density () (mean and variance >) has the following properties: It is symmetric around the point =, which is at the same time the mode, the median and the mean of the distribution. [22]
Comparison of mean, median and mode of two log-normal distributions with different skewness. The mode is the point of global maximum of the probability density function. In particular, by solving the equation ( ln f ) ′ = 0 {\displaystyle (\ln f)'=0} , we get that: