[FieldTrip] Problems with statistics for circular data

Stanley A. KLEIN sklein at berkeley.edu
Wed Jan 15 16:50:07 CET 2014


Could someone clarify for me the solution for dealing with circular data.
Suppose I simple want to calculate the standard deviation of measuring the
phase of something.  Since the distribution isn't Gaussian, what does one
do other than permutation cluster analysis sort of stuff (but not for
calculating standard deviation).
Stan


On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 10:07 AM,
<Thomas.Baumgarten at med.uni-duesseldorf.de>wrote:

>  Dear Tobias,
>
> Thank you for the hint! Indeed, this makes the calculation of the circular
> difference much easier and the resulting values stay between -pi and pi.
> Sorry that I didn’t think of this, since the purpose of the function is
> rather obvious.
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Thomas
>
>
>
> *Von:* fieldtrip-bounces at science.ru.nl [mailto:
> fieldtrip-bounces at science.ru.nl] *Im Auftrag von *Tobias Staudigl
> *Gesendet:* Mittwoch, 15. Januar 2014 10:19
> *An:* FieldTrip discussion list
> *Betreff:* Re: [FieldTrip] Problems with statistics for circular data
>
>
>
> Dear Thomas,
>
> try using circ_dist.m (in the circ_stats toolbox by Berens).
> This should solve the circular difference issue.
>
> all the best,
> Tobias
>
> Am 15.01.2014 09:35, schrieb Thomas.Baumgarten at med.uni-duesseldorf.de:
>
> Dear FieldTrip users,
>
> I am working on a set of circular data (phase angles of ongoing
> oscillations computed via Hilbert transform) and would like to
> statistically compare two conditions (A,B). For this, I use the circular
> statistics toolbox for matlab by P. Berens. I worked on this problem from
> two different angles:
>
> 1. First, I tried to directly compare the two conditions via the
> Watson-Williams two-sample test (function: circ_wwtest). Unfortunately,
> this didn’t work out, since the test requires an average resultant vector
> length of > 0.45 for n >= 11 entries/ subjects, an assumption which is not
> met by my data.
>
> 2. Second, I tried to calculate the angle of difference between the two
> conditions (angle(A) – angle(B)) and then used  the one-sample mean angle
> test (function: circ_mtest) to test if the resulting angle of difference is
> significantly different from zero. Here, the following problems arise:
> Since the resulting angles for A and B range from –pi to +pi, there are
> cases when the subtraction of the two angles results in roughly +2pi or
> -2pi (e.g. cases where (A = pi) – (B = -pi) = 2pi), resulting in an error
> from the circ_mtest function. I tried to solve this problem by using a
> modulus (2pi) operation (i.e. by ‘cleaning out’ the redundant
> circumventions while at the same time preserving the angle information),
> but unfortunately this didn’t work out either.
>
> The only other option I can think of would be to generate surrogate data
> (i.e. a matrix with the same dimensions as the matrix with the angles of
> difference , only filled with zeros) and to apply a cluster-based
> permutation test (similar to ft_freqstatitics). Although this would take
> care of my multiple-comparison problem, I am not quite sure if the cluster
> correction is still valid in this case and if this test would work for
> circular data.
>
> I would greatly appreciate any comments and advice on this matter.
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Thomas
>
>
>
>
>
> Thomas Baumgarten, PhD Student
>
> Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical
> Faculty, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, 40225
> Düsseldorf, Germany
>
>
>
>
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>
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>
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>
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>
>
>
>
>  --
>
> Dr. Tobias Staudigl
>
> Fachbereich Psychologie - ZPR
>
> Postfach ZPR
>
> 78457 Konstanz
>
> ZPR, Haus 12
>
> Tel.: +49 (0)7531 / 88 - 5703
>
>
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