sample_from_density()

Introduction

Behavioral data often exhibit complex patterns that may not adhere to well-known parametric distributions. Traditional statistical methods reliant on such distributions may therefore prove inadequate in capturing the nuanced behaviors observed in real-world scenarios.

Approximating a density distribution from a data sample using Kernel Density Estimation allows researchers to estimate the underlying patterns that could emerge from a specific experiment, thus, the ability to generate synthetic data samples that closely mimic the distribution of observed behavioral data serves as a valuable tool in behavioral analysis. Such samples allow researchers to explore various hypotheses, validate statistical models, and assess the efficacy of experimental interventions in a controlled setting.

Here we introduce the sample_from_density() function which generates a given n amount of data points from a density distribution calculated using KDE (Kernel Density Estimation) from a given data set.

The function takes two parameters:

• x A numeric vector of data points from an distribution.
• n the number of samples to return.

Example

Let’s generate a random sample from a normal distribution:

set.seed(142)
normal_sample <- rnorm(100)

Now let’s create a sample of 100 data points from the distribution estimated with the sample_from_density() function:

sampled_dist <- sample_from_density(normal_sample, 100)

Finally let’s compare both distributions: