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In statistics, regression toward (or to) the mean is the phenomenon that if a variable is extreme on its first measurement, it will tend to be closer to the average on its second measurement—and if it is extreme on its second measurement, it will tend to have been closer to the average on its first.〔Everitt, B.S. (2002) ''The Cambridge Dictionary of Statistics'', CUP. ISBN 0-521-81099-X〕〔Upton, G., Cook, I. (2006) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. ISBN 978-0-19-954145-4〕 To avoid making incorrect inferences, regression toward the mean must be considered when designing scientific experiments and interpreting data. The conditions under which regression toward the mean occurs depend on the way the term is mathematically defined. Sir Francis Galton first observed the phenomenon in the context of simple linear regression of data points. Galton developed the following model: pellets fall through a quincunx forming a normal distribution centered directly under their entrance point. These pellets could then be released down into a second gallery (corresponding to a second measurement occasion. Galton then asked the reverse question "from where did these pellets come?" "The answer was not 'A less restrictive approach is possible. Regression towards the mean can be defined for any bivariate distribution with identical marginal distributions. Two such definitions exist.〔.〕One definition accords closely with the common usage of the term “regression towards the mean”. Not all such bivariate distributions show regression towards the mean under this definition. However, all such bivariate distributions show regression towards the mean under the other definition. Historically, what is now called regression toward the mean has also been called reversion to the mean and reversion to mediocrity. In finance, the term mean reversion has a different meaning. Jeremy Siegel uses it to describe a financial time series in which "returns can be very unstable in the short run but very stable in the long run." More quantitatively, it is one in which the standard deviation of average annual returns declines faster than the inverse of the holding period, implying that the process is not a random walk, but that periods of lower returns are systematically followed by compensating periods of higher returns, in seasonal businesses for example.〔, p. 13, pp. 28–9〕 ==Conceptual background== Consider a simple example: a class of students takes a 100-item true/false test on a subject. Suppose that all students choose randomly on all questions. Then, each student’s score would be a realization of one of a set of independent and identically distributed random variables, with an expected mean of 50. Naturally, some students will score substantially above 50 and some substantially below 50 just by chance. If one takes only the top scoring 10% of the students and gives them a second test on which they again choose randomly on all items, the mean score would again be expected to be close to 50. Thus the mean of these students would “regress” all the way back to the mean of all students who took the original test. No matter what a student scores on the original test, the best prediction of their score on the second test is 50. If there were no luck (good or bad) or random guessing involved in the answers supplied by students to the test questions, then all students would be expected to score the same on the second test as they scored on the original test, and there would be no regression toward the mean. Most realistic situations fall between these two extremes: for example, one might consider exam scores as a combination of skill and luck. In this case, the subset of students scoring above average would be composed of those who were skilled and had not especially bad luck, together with those who were unskilled, but were extremely lucky. On a retest of this subset, the unskilled will be unlikely to repeat their lucky break, while the skilled will have a second chance to have bad luck. Hence, those who did well previously are unlikely to do quite as well in the second test even if the original cannot be replicated. The following is an example of this second kind of regression toward the mean. A class of students takes two editions of the same test on two successive days. It has frequently been observed that the worst performers on the first day will tend to improve their scores on the second day, and the best performers on the first day will tend to do worse on the second day. The phenomenon occurs because student scores are determined in part by underlying ability and in part by chance. For the first test, some will be lucky, and score more than their ability, and some will be unlucky and score less than their ability. Some of the lucky students on the first test will be lucky again on the second test, but more of them will have (for them) average or below average scores. Therefore a student who was lucky on the first test is more likely to have a worse score on the second test than a better score. Similarly, students who score less than the mean on the first test will tend to see their scores increase on the second test. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Regression toward the mean」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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