Local independence is the underlying assumption of latent variable models. The observed items are conditionally independent of each other given an individual score on the latent variable(s). This means that the latent variable explains why the observed items are related to another. This can be explained by the following example.
Read more about Local Independence: Example
Famous quotes containing the words local and/or independence:
“To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among cases, a world among worlds, that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self- congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes.”
—Clifford Geertz (b. 1926)
“Traditionally in American society, men have been trained for both competition and teamwork through sports, while women have been reared to merge their welfare with that of the family, with fewer opportunities for either independence or other team identifications, and fewer challenges to direct competition. In effect, women have been circumscribed within that unit where the benefit of one is most easily believed to be the benefit of all.”
—Mary Catherine Bateson (b. 1939)