Stan Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
> Today in class we looked at shapes of distributions. I realized that > I could think of lots of examples of symmetric distributions and of > distributions that are skewed right, but I went blank trying to > think of a straightforward real-life example of a distribution that > is skewed left. > > Anyone care to contribute the obvious answer that I can't think of? Adult human weight would be slightly left-skewed, because the physiological lower limits are closer than the physiological upper limits to the mean. Measures of conformity to cultural norms tend to give skewed distributions when applied to members of the culture, and would be left-skewed in "more is better" cases. For example, frequency of bathing per week would probably be left-skewed for Americans. Time elapsed since hospitalization would be left-skewed for currently- hospitalized SARS patients in places like Hong Kong or Singapore where the outbreak is nearly over, but not in places like Taiwan or Toronto. . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
