One way of looking at it is doing a sign test after substraction of the mean. For symmetrical data sets, E[X-mean(X)] = 0, so you expect to have about as many values above as below zero. There is a sign test somewhere in one of the packages, but it's easily done using the binom.test as well :
> set.seed(12345) > x1 <- rnorm(100) > x2 <- rpois(100,2) > binom.test((sum(x1-mean(x1)>0)),length(x1)) Exact binomial test data: (sum(x1 - mean(x1) > 0)) and length(x1) number of successes = 56, number of trials = 100, p-value = 0.2713 alternative hypothesis: true probability of success is not equal to 0.5 95 percent confidence interval: 0.4571875 0.6591640 sample estimates: probability of success 0.56 > binom.test((sum(x2-mean(x2)>0)),length(x2)) Exact binomial test data: (sum(x2 - mean(x2) > 0)) and length(x2) number of successes = 37, number of trials = 100, p-value = 0.01203 alternative hypothesis: true probability of success is not equal to 0.5 95 percent confidence interval: 0.2755666 0.4723516 sample estimates: probability of success 0.37 Cheers Joris On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 4:16 AM, Atte Tenkanen <atte...@utu.fi> wrote: > PS. > > Mayby I can somehow try to transform data and check it, for example, using > the skewness-function of timeDate-package? > >> Thanks. What I have had to ask is that >> >> how do you test that the data is symmetric enough? >> If it is not, is it ok to use some data transformation? >> >> when it is said: >> >> "The Wilcoxon signed rank test does not assume that the data are >> sampled from a Gaussian distribution. However it does assume that the >> data are distributed symmetrically around the median. If the >> distribution is asymmetrical, the P value will not tell you much about >> whether the median is different than the hypothetical value." >> >> > On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 10:27 PM, Atte Tenkanen <atte...@utu.fi> wrote: >> > > Hi all, >> > > >> > > I have a distribution, and take a sample of it. Then I compare >> that >> > sample with the mean of the population like here in "Wilcoxon signed >> >> > rank test with continuity correction": >> > > >> > >> wilcox.test(Sample,mu=mean(All), alt="two.sided") >> > > >> > > Wilcoxon signed rank test with continuity correction >> > > >> > > data: AlphaNoteOnsetDists >> > > V = 63855, p-value = 0.0002093 >> > > alternative hypothesis: true location is not equal to 0.4115136 >> > > >> > >> wilcox.test(Sample,mu=mean(All), alt = "greater") >> > > >> > > Wilcoxon signed rank test with continuity correction >> > > >> > > data: AlphaNoteOnsetDists >> > > V = 63855, p-value = 0.0001047 >> > > alternative hypothesis: true location is greater than 0.4115136 >> > > >> > > What assumptions are needed for the population? >> > >> > wikipedia says: >> > "The Wilcoxon signed-rank test is a _non-parametric_ statistical >> > hypothesis test for... " >> > it also talks about the assumptions. >> > >> > > What can we say according these results? >> > > p-value for the "less" is 0.999. >> > >> > That the p-value for less and greater seem to sum up to one, and that >> > the p-value of greater is half of that for two-sided. You shouldn't >> > ask what we can say. You should ask yourself "What was the question >> > and is this test giving me an answer on that question?" >> > >> > Cheers >> > Joris >> > >> > -- >> > Joris Meys >> > Statistical consultant >> > >> > Ghent University >> > Faculty of Bioscience Engineering >> > Department of Applied mathematics, biometrics and process control >> > >> > tel : +32 9 264 59 87 >> > joris.m...@ugent.be >> > ------------------------------- >> > Disclaimer : http://helpdesk.ugent.be/e-maildisclaimer.php > -- Joris Meys Statistical consultant Ghent University Faculty of Bioscience Engineering Department of Applied mathematics, biometrics and process control tel : +32 9 264 59 87 joris.m...@ugent.be ------------------------------- Disclaimer : http://helpdesk.ugent.be/e-maildisclaimer.php ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.