Average Absolute Deviation?

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Delany MacDonald
Delany MacDonald on 16 Mar 2016
Edited: Meg Noah on 8 Aug 2025 at 2:47
What is the coding in matlab to find the AAD?

Answers (4)

John D'Errico
John D'Errico on 16 Mar 2016
1. Compute the deviation. (You have not said what the deviation is from, so I cannot answer that.)
2. Compute the absolute value of the deviations. abs will suffice.
help abs
3. Use mean to compute the average.
help mean
  1 Comment
Delany MacDonald
Delany MacDonald on 16 Mar 2016
If its standard deviation would it be y= std(x) then absy = abs(y) then meany = mean(absy)?

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Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson on 16 Mar 2016
mean( abs(x - mean(x)) )

Image Analyst
Image Analyst on 16 Mar 2016
Edited: Image Analyst on 16 Mar 2016
We usually find the median absolute deviation is a better measure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_absolute_deviation because the measure itself is less affected by outliers.
On a global basis you can do
mad = median(abs(array(:) - median(array(:))))
We often use it to find outliers in the data.

Meg Noah
Meg Noah on 8 Aug 2025 at 2:42
Edited: Meg Noah on 8 Aug 2025 at 2:47
The Average Absolute Deviation (AAD) is the mean of deviations from a central point (central tendency).
If the central point is the mean of the data set, then the AAD is also referred to as the Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD).
If the central point is the median of the data set, then the AAD is also referred to as the Median Absolute Deviation, which can also be abbreviated as MAD.
If the central point is the mode of the data set, then the AAD is the Mode Absolute Deviation.
The central point can be determined other ways as well.
To add to the confusion of this, the Median Absolute Deviation can also be mathematically defined as:
Example:
rng default
X = randi([1 10],1,20)
X = 1×20
9 10 2 10 7 1 3 6 10 10 2 10 10 5 9 2 5 10 8 10
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meanAbsoluteDeviation = mean(abs(X-mean(X)))
meanAbsoluteDeviation = 2.9600
medianAbsoluteDeviation = mean(abs(X-median(X)))
medianAbsoluteDeviation = 2.8500
medianAbsoluteDeviation2 = median(abs(X-median(X)))
medianAbsoluteDeviation2 = 1.5000
modeAbsoluteDeviation = mean(abs(X-mode(X)))
modeAbsoluteDeviation = 3.0500

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