When the data are symmetrically distributed around the meanwhilemean while the frequency of occurrence of data farther away from the mean diminishes, one may for example select the [[normal distribution]], the [[logistic distribution]], or the [[Student's t-distribution]]. The first two are very similar, while the last, with one degree of freedom, has "heavier tails" meaning that the values farther away from the mean occur relatively more often (i.e. the [[kurtosis]] is higher). The [[Cauchy distribution]] is also symmetric.
