Cophenetic correlation

In statistics, and especially in biostatistics, cophenetic correlation (more precisely, the cophenetic correlation coefficient) is a measure of how faithfully a dendrogram preserves the pairwise distances between the original unmodeled data points. Although it has been most widely applied in the field of biostatistics (typically to assess cluster-based models of DNA sequences, or other taxonomic models), it can also be used in other fields of inquiry where raw data tend to occur in clumps, or clusters.

Calculating the cophenetic correlation coefficient

Suppose that the original data {X_i} have been modeled using a cluster method to produce a dendrogram {T_i}; that is, a simplified model in which data that are "close" have been grouped into a heirarchical tree. Define the following distance measures.

• x(i, j) = | X_i − X_j |, the ordinary Euclidean distance between the ith and jth observations.
• t(i, j) = the dendrogrammatic distance between the model points T_i and T_j. This distance is always integral; it's the number of steps required to move from node i down the tree to the point at which i and j share a common node, then back up the tree to node j.

Then, letting x be the average of the x(i, j), and letting t be the average of the t(i, j), the cophenetic correlation coefficient c is given by

<math>

c = \frac {\sum_{i<j} (x(i,j) - x)(t(i,j) - t)}{\sqrt{[\sum_{i<j}(x(i,j)-x)^2] [\sum_{i<j}(t(i,j)-t)^2]}}. </math>

See also

• Cophenetic