Statistical inference with anchored Bayesian mixture of regressions models: A case study analysis of allometric data

Abstract

We present an illustrative study in which we use a mixture of regressions model to improve on an ill-fitting simple linear regression model relating log brain mass to log body mass for 100 placental mammalian species. The slope of the model is of particular scientific interest because it corresponds to a constant that governs a hypothesized allometric power law relating brain mass to body mass. We model these data using an anchored Bayesian mixture of regressions model, which modifies the standard Bayesian Gaussian mixture by pre-assigning small subsets of observations to given mixture components with probability one. These observations (called anchor points) break the relabeling invariance (or label-switching) typical of exchangeable models. In the article, we develop a strategy for selecting anchor points using tools from case influence diagnostics. We compare the performance of three anchoring methodson the allometric data and in simulated settings.