Topic
P-value histograms
What does the shape of my p-value distribution say about my test?
A well-behaved test gives a flat histogram with a spike near zero. A U shape, a hump in the middle, or a conservative pile-up near one each diagnose a specific problem: wrong distribution, unmodeled batch, or filtering after testing. It is the cheapest diagnostic in statistics and almost nobody looks at it.
- How to Read a P-Value Histogram in ATAC-seq
Your differential accessibility table is only as good as the shape of its p-values, and one hist() call tells you whether to trust it before you look at a single peak.
- How to Read a P-Value Histogram in Bulk RNA-seq
A misshapen histogram is the cheapest bug report your DE test will ever hand you, and almost nobody opens it before trusting padj.
- How to Read a P-Value Histogram in ChIP-seq
Flat with a spike, a hill, a U, or a pile-up near 1: each shape of your differential binding p-values points at a specific broken assumption, and you can see it in one line of R.