A Comparison of Methods for the Detection of Outliers in Multivariate Data

Numerous classical as well as robust methods have been proposed in the literature for the detection of multiple outlier in multivariate data. The effectiveness and power of each of these methods have not been thoroughly investigated. In this paper we first reduce the vast number of outlier detection methods to a small number of viable ones. This reduction is based on previous work of other researches and on some theoretical arguments. Then we design and implement a Monte Carlo experiment for comparing these methods. The main goal of our study is to determine which methods are most powerful in the detection of multiple outlier and in dealing with the masking and swamping problems. The results of the Monte Carlo study indicate that two of the methods seem to hace better performances than the others for the detection of multiple outlier in multivariate data.