Example of a violin plot
Example of a violin plot in a scientific publication in PLOS Pathogens.

A violin plot is a statistical graphic for comparing probability distributions. It is similar to a box plot, with the addition of a rotated kernel density plot on each side.[1]

History

The violin plot was proposed in 1997 by Jerry L. Hintze and Ray D. Nelson as a way to display even more information than box plots, which were created by John Tukey in 1977.[2] The name comes from the plot's alleged resemblance to a violin.[2]

About

Violin plots are similar to box plots, except that they also show the probability density of the data at different values, usually smoothed by a kernel density estimator. A violin plot will include all the data that is in a box plot: a marker for the median of the data; a box or marker indicating the interquartile range; and possibly all sample points, if the number of samples is not too high.

While a box plot shows a summary statistics such as mean/median and interquartile ranges, the violin plot shows the full distribution of the data. The violin plot can be used in multimodal data (more than one peak). In this case a violin plot shows the presence of different peaks, their position and relative amplitude.

Like box plots, violin plots are used to represent comparison of a variable distribution (or sample distribution) across different "categories" (for example, temperature distribution compared between day and night, or distribution of car prices compared across different car makers).

A violin plot can have multiple layers. For instance, the outer shape represents all possible results. The next layer inside might represent the values that occur 95% of the time. The next layer (if it exists) inside might represent the values that occur 50% of the time.

Violin plots are less popular than box plot. Violin plots may be harder to understand for readers not familiar with them. In this case, a more accessible alternative is to plot a series of stacked histograms or kernel density plots.

The original meaning of "violin plot" was a combination of a box plot and a two-sided kernel density plot.[1] However, currently "violin plots" are sometimes understood just as two-sided kernel density plots, without a box plot or any other elements.[3][4]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Violin Plot". NIST DataPlot. National Institute of Standards and Technology. 2015-10-13.
  2. 1 2 Hintze, Jerry L.; Nelson, Ray D. (May 1998). "Violin Plots: A Box Plot-Density Trace Synergism". The American Statistician. 52 (2): 181–184. doi:10.1080/00031305.1998.10480559. ISSN 0003-1305.
  3. ↑ Wilke, Claus O. Fundamentals of Data Visualization.
  4. ↑ "Violin plot — geom_violin". ggplot2.tidyverse.org. Retrieved 2023-11-19.
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