Empirical influence functions for misclassification rates in discriminant analysis

Abstract

The empirical influence function for Mahalanobis distance and for misclassification rates are presented for discriminant analysis with two multivariate normal populations, following Campbell (1978). Conclusions about the effects of outliers from the empirical influence function are contrasted with exact calculations for four simple cases. These cases demonstrate that the higher-order terms discarded in deriving the empirical influence function can be important in practical problems.