# MCLUST model names corresponding to common models (i.e., those used for LPA / LCA)

A number of reviews of mixture models, such as Fraley and Raftery (2002) describe three common models, in terms of their geometric interpretation:

• All mixture components are spherical and of the same size
• Equal variance
• Unconstrained variance

Helpfully, though for some beginners like me confusingly, MCLUST in R provides a wider range of model names that include the three common models above, according to the MCLUST documentation:

multivariate mixture
"EII"   =   spherical, equal volume
"VII"   =   spherical, unequal volume
"EEI"   =   diagonal, equal volume and shape
"VEI"   =   diagonal, varying volume, equal shape
"EVI"   =   diagonal, equal volume, varying shape
"VVI"   =   diagonal, varying volume and shape
"EEE"   =   ellipsoidal, equal volume, shape, and orientation
"EVE"   =   ellipsoidal, equal volume and orientation
"VEE"   =   ellipsoidal, equal shape and orientation
"VVE"   =   ellipsoidal, equal orientation
"EEV"   =   ellipsoidal, equal volume and equal shape
"VEV"   =   ellipsoidal, equal shape
"EVV"   =   ellipsoidal, equal volume
"VVV"   =   ellipsoidal, varying volume, shape, and orientation


Which of the MCLUST model names do the three common models described by Fraley and Raftery correspond to?

My educated guesses, assuming that varying volume and shape (and orientation) are simply less-constrained parameterizations of the covariance matrix, and therefore equal volume and shape (and orientation) are the same for equal variance, are:

• All mixture components are spherical and the same size: EII
• Equal variance across mixture components: EEE
• Unconstrained variance across mixture components: VVV

I ask because in my area of research / field, Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) (or Latent Class Analysis [LCA]) are commonly used to do mixture modeling as part of a latent variable model approach.

In this approach, analysts commonly specify models in which the measured variables' residual variances and covariances are constrained to be the same across profiles (or classes) or to be freely-estimated across classes.

More generally than about this specific question, I'm searching for advice about how to interpret these geometric model descriptions to the way models are specified in an LPA / LCA approach.

• Are you able to post the entire article as a link to a pdf instead? Some readers may not have free access to the article you are referencing. – Jon Aug 25 '17 at 15:44
• thanks, I found a link to a pre-print and edited the post to use that. – Joshua Rosenberg Aug 25 '17 at 15:46
• I wrote a blog post exploring some of the questions in this post, ending with a similar question as this post jrosen48.github.io/blog/lpa-in-r-using-mclust – Joshua Rosenberg Aug 25 '17 at 15:48
• So I just read your question, and I believe the answer you're seeking is found in their website and/or in Cluster Analysis by Everitt et al. It's been a few years since I've looked at any of this material, so I'll have to dig through some notes when I get home tomorrow – Jon Aug 25 '17 at 16:28
• After reading your question again, I'm not sure what you're trying to do. So I flipped through the paper you reference, but did not find the three classes you are referring to (maybe I missed it?). Anyways, what Fraley et al are doing in mclust is that they are giving you more variation in the types of clusters you can model/obtain. If you're looking to understand what the names mean, you can read page 8 of stat.washington.edu/research/reports/2012/tr597.pdf – Jon Aug 28 '17 at 21:16