A bomodal distibution is often thought to be a mixture of two other
distibution with different modes. If the distributions have different sizes,
then it is possible to have two or more "humps". I once read somewhere (and
now can't remember where) that this may be referred to as bimodal (or
multimodal). In the bimodal case, some refer to the higher "hump" as the
major mode and the other as the minor mode.
Paul R. Swank, Ph.D.
Professor
Developmental Pediatrics
UT Houston Health Science Center
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Wuensch, Karl L.
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 11:54 AM
To: edstat (E-mail)
Subject: Bimodal distributions
Does a bimodal distribution necessarily have two modes? This might
seem like a silly question, but in my experience many folks apply the term
"bimodal" whenever the PDF has two peaks that are not very close to one
another, even if the one peak is much lower than the other. For example,
David Howell (Statistical Methods for Psychology, 5th, p. 29) presents
Bradley's (1963) reaction time data as an example of a bimodal distribution.
The frequency distribution shows a peak at about 10 hundredths of a second
(freq about 520), no observations between about 18 and 33 hundredths, and
then a second (much lower) peak at about 50 hundredths (freq about 25).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Karl L. Wuensch, Department of Psychology,
East Carolina University, Greenville NC 27858-4353
Voice: 252-328-4102 Fax: 252-328-6283
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://core.ecu.edu/psyc/wuenschk/klw.htm
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