scipy.stats.

ppcc_plot#

scipy.stats.ppcc_plot(x, a, b, dist='tukeylambda', plot=None, N=80)[source]#

Calculate and optionally plot probability plot correlation coefficient.

The probability plot correlation coefficient (PPCC) plot can be used to determine the optimal shape parameter for a one-parameter family of distributions. It cannot be used for distributions without shape parameters (like the normal distribution) or with multiple shape parameters.

By default a Tukey-Lambda distribution (stats.tukeylambda) is used. A Tukey-Lambda PPCC plot interpolates from long-tailed to short-tailed distributions via an approximately normal one, and is therefore particularly useful in practice.

Parameters:
xarray_like

Input array.

a, bscalar

Lower and upper bounds of the shape parameter to use.

diststr or stats.distributions instance, optional

Distribution or distribution function name. Objects that look enough like a stats.distributions instance (i.e. they have a ppf method) are also accepted. The default is 'tukeylambda'.

plotobject, optional

If given, plots PPCC against the shape parameter. plot is an object that has to have methods β€œplot” and β€œtext”. The matplotlib.pyplot module or a Matplotlib Axes object can be used, or a custom object with the same methods. Default is None, which means that no plot is created.

Nint, optional

Number of points on the horizontal axis (equally distributed from a to b).

Returns:
svalsndarray

The shape values for which ppcc was calculated.

ppccndarray

The calculated probability plot correlation coefficient values.

Notes

Array API Standard Support

ppcc_plot has experimental support for Python Array API Standard compatible backends in addition to NumPy. Please consider testing these features by setting an environment variable SCIPY_ARRAY_API=1 and providing CuPy, PyTorch, JAX, or Dask arrays as array arguments. The following combinations of backend and device (or other capability) are supported.

Library

CPU

GPU

NumPy

βœ…

n/a

CuPy

n/a

β›”

PyTorch

β›”

β›”

JAX

β›”

β›”

Dask

β›”

n/a

See Support for the array API standard for more information.

References

J.J. Filliben, β€œThe Probability Plot Correlation Coefficient Test for Normality”, Technometrics, Vol. 17, pp. 111-117, 1975.

Examples

First we generate some random data from a Weibull distribution with shape parameter 2.5, and plot the histogram of the data:

>>> import numpy as np
>>> from scipy import stats
>>> import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
>>> rng = np.random.default_rng()
>>> c = 2.5
>>> x = stats.weibull_min.rvs(c, scale=4, size=2000, random_state=rng)

Take a look at the histogram of the data.

>>> fig1, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(9, 4))
>>> ax.hist(x, bins=50)
>>> ax.set_title('Histogram of x')
>>> plt.show()
../../_images/scipy-stats-ppcc_plot-1_00_00.png

Now we explore this data with a PPCC plot as well as the related probability plot and Box-Cox normplot. A red line is drawn where we expect the PPCC value to be maximal (at the shape parameter c used above):

>>> fig2 = plt.figure(figsize=(12, 4))
>>> ax1 = fig2.add_subplot(1, 3, 1)
>>> ax2 = fig2.add_subplot(1, 3, 2)
>>> ax3 = fig2.add_subplot(1, 3, 3)
>>> res = stats.probplot(x, plot=ax1)
>>> res = stats.boxcox_normplot(x, -4, 4, plot=ax2)
>>> res = stats.ppcc_plot(x, c/2, 2*c, dist='weibull_min', plot=ax3)
>>> ax3.axvline(c, color='r')
>>> plt.show()
../../_images/scipy-stats-ppcc_plot-1_01_00.png