Clustering noisy data in a reduced dimension space via multivariate regression trees

Cluster analysis is sensitive to noise variables intrinsically contained within high dimensional data sets. As the size of data sets increases, clustering techniques robust to noise variables must be identified. This investigation gauges the capabilities of recent clustering algorithms applied to two real data sets increasingly perturbed by superfluous noise variables. The recent techniques include mixture models of factor analysers and auto-associative multivariate regression trees. Statistical techniques are integrated to create two approaches useful for clustering noisy data: multivariate regression trees with principal component scores and multivariate regression trees with factor scores. The tree techniques generate the superior clustering results. (c) 2005 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.