Simple linear regression
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The basic problem in regression analysis is to understand the relationship between a response variable, denoted by Y, and one or more predictor variables, denoted by X. The relationship is typically empirical or statistical as opposed to functional or mathematical. The goal is to describe this relationship in the form of a functional dependence of the mean value of Y given any value of X from paired observations {(Xi,Yi):i=1,…,n}
A basic linear regression model for the response Y on the predictor X is given by
Yi=β0+β1Xi+εi,i=1,…,n,
where the noise ε1,…,εn are uncorrelated, Mean(εi)=0, and Variance(εi)=σ2.
Interpretation
Look at the scatter plot of Y (vertical axis) vs. X (horizontal axis). Consider narrow vertical strips around the different values of X:
- Mean (measure of center) of the points falling in the vertical strips lie (approximately) on a straight line with slope β1 and intercept β0 .
- Standard deviations (measure of spread) of the points falling in each vertical strip are (roughly) the same.