One sample tests for the location of modes of nonnormal data (Q5929481)

Summary: There are few techniques available for testing if modes take specified values. We show that standard tests of location such as the \(t\)-test and the Wilcoxon test, which test for the mean and median, respectively, can perform poorly as tests for modes when the data is other than unimodal and symmetric. \textit{A.M. Carolan} and \textit{J.C.W. Rayner} [Commun. Stat., Theory Methods 29, No.~7, 1569-1581 (2000; Zbl 0993.62040)] proposed a score test of location for symmetric nonnormal data. We consider a family of distributions similar to those considered by Carolan and Rayner and propose a test for the mode or modes of data from multimodal or skewed distributions and demonstrate by way of simulations that it is reasonably effective.