central tendency

American  

noun

Statistics.

1. the tendency of samples of a given measurement to cluster around some central value.

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central tendency British  

noun

1. statistics the tendency of the values of a random variable to cluster around the mean, median, and mode

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Etymology

Origin of central tendency

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

The study, published in eLife, describes how the model shows neural circuits can give rise to both recency and central tendency biases at the same time through a single mechanism.

From Science Daily

To understand the neural processes that underpin both central tendency and recency biases, neuroscientists at SWC and Imperial College London studied the phenomena in a neural network model, highly inspired by prior results from rodents and human working memory experiments.

From Science Daily

"Psychologists first observed the central tendency bias over a century ago, but it was assumed to be a separate phenomenon to recency. Our results imply that these two biases are more related than previously thought," said Vezha Boboeva, Senior Research Fellow at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre and first author on the paper.

From Science Daily

Central tendency bias, also known as contraction bias, is a ubiquitous phenomenon.

From Science Daily

A central tendency of people with a narcissistic personality is that they treat other people as an extension of themselves and their bodies.

From Salon