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Probability Distributions Types

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Nadir Zamouche
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25 views2 pages

Probability Distributions Types

Uploaded by

Nadir Zamouche
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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* Here are the main types of probability distributions:

- Discrete distributions: which have a finite number of outcomes like rolling a


die or picking a card.
- Continuous distributions: have infinitly many outcomes like recording time and
distance in track & field.

1 Discrete distributions (finite number of outcomes):


A. Uniform distribution: like drawing a poker card from a deck or rolling a dice,
both examples show events where all outcomes are equally
likely such outcomes are called equiprobable 1/52 & 1/6.

B. Bernoulli Distribution: events with only two possible outcomes – true or


false. regardless of whether one outcome is more likely to occur.
Any event with two outcomes can be transformed into a Bernoulli event. We
simply assign one of them to be “true” and the other one to be
“false” like flipping a coin for example 1/2.

C. Binomial Distribution (n*Bernoulli or Bernoulli with iterations): for example


we assign the captain being domestic to be “true” and the
captain being an international as “false”. Since the outcome can now only be
“true” or “false”, we have a Bernoulli distribution. Now, if we
carry out a similar experiment several times in a row we are dealing with a
Binomial Distribution (1/2)*n.

D. Poisson Distribution: We use it when we want to test out how unusual an event
frequency is for a given interval.

2 Continuous distributions (One thing to remember is that since we are dealing with
continuous outcomes, the probability distribution would be a
curve as opposed to unconnected individual bars):

A. Normal Distribution: The outcomes of many events in nature closely resemble


this distribution, hence the name “Normal”. For instance,
according to numerous reports throughout the last few decades, the weight of
an adult male polar bear is usually around 500 kilograms.
However, there have been records of individual species weighing anywhere
between 350kg and 700kg. Extreme values, like 350 and 700, are
called outliers and do not feature very frequently in Normal Distributions.

B. Student’s-T distribution: Sometimes, we have limited data for events that


resemble a Normal distribution. In those cases, we observe the
Student’s T distribution. It serves as a small sample approximation of a
Normal distribution. Another difference is that the Student’s-T
accommodates extreme values significantly better. Graphically, that is
represented by the curve having fatter “tails”. Overall, this
results in more values extremely far away from the mean, so the curve would
probably more closely resemble a Student’s-T distribution than
a Normal distribution. Now imagine only looking at the recorded weights of
the last 10 sightings across Alaska and Canada. The lower number
of elements would make the occurrence of any extreme value represent a much
bigger part of the population than it should.

C. Chi-Squared distribution: It is the first asymmetric continuous distribution


we are dealing with as it only consists of non-negative
values. Graphically, that means that the Chi-Squared distribution always
starts from 0 on the left. Depending on the average and maximum
values within the set, the curve of the Chi Squared graph is usually skewed
to the left. Unlike the previous two distributions, the Chi-
Squared does not often mirror real life events. However, it is often used in
Hypothesis Testing to help determine goodness of fit.

D. Exponential distribution: usually present when we are dealing with events


that are rapidly changing early on. An easy to understand
example is how online news articles generates hits. They get most of their
clicks when the topic is still fresh. The more time passes, the
more irrelevant it becomes and interest dies off.

e. Logistic distribution: We often find it useful in forecast analysis when we


try to determine a cut-off point for a successful outcome. For
instance, take a competitive e-sport like Dota 2. We can use a Logistic
distribution to determine how much of an in-game advantage at the
10- minute mark is necessary to confidently predict victory for either team.
Just like with other types of forecasting, our predictions
would never reach true certainty.

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