Additive error is the error that is added to the true value and does not depend on the true value itself. In other words, the result of the measurement is considered as a sum of the true value and the additive error:
where
- is the result of a measurement of some quantity, say, weight;
- is the true value of the quantity;
- is the additive error, which is of the same physical dimension as the quantity being measured;
The model of additive errors is the most popular error model in statistics. In this model the additive error is assumed to be independent of the true value .
A related concept is multiplicative error.