winsorising

Winsorizing or winsorization is the transformation of statistics by limiting extreme values in the statistical data to reduce the effect of possibly spurious outliers. It is named after the engineer-turned-biostatistician Charles P. Winsor (1895–1951). The effect is the same as clipping in signal processing.

The distribution of many statistics can be heavily influenced by outliers, values that are 'way outside' the bulk of the data. A typical strategy to account for, without eliminating altogether, these outlier values is to 'reset' outliers to a specified percentile (or an upper and lower percentile) of the data. For example, a 90% winsorization would see all data below the 5th percentile set to the 5th percentile, and all data above the 95th percentile set to the 95th percentile. Winsorized estimators are usually more robust to outliers than their more standard forms, although there are alternatives, such as trimming (see below), that will achieve a similar effect.