DENDOGRAM
A dendrogram is a diagram that shows the hierarchical relationship
between objects. It is most commonly created as an output
from hierarchical clustering. The main use of a dendrogram is to work out
the best way to allocate objects to clusters. The dendrogram below shows
the hierarchical clustering of six observations shown on the scatterplot to
the left. (Dendrogram is often miswritten as dendogram.)
How to read a dendrogram
The key to interpreting a dendrogram is to focus on the height at which any
two objects are joined together. In the example above, we can see that E
and F are most similar, as the height of the link that joins them together is
the smallest. The next two most similar objects are A and B.
In the dendrogram above, the height of the dendrogram indicates the order
in which the clusters were joined. A more informative dendrogram can be
created where the heights reflect the distance between the clusters as is
shown below. In this case, the dendrogram shows us that the big difference
between clusters is between the cluster of A and B versus that of C, D, E,
and F.
It is important to appreciate that the dendrogram is a summary of the
distance matrix, and, as occurs with most summaries, information is lost.
For example, the dendrogram suggests that C and D are much closer to
each other than is C to B, but the original data (shown in the scatter plot),
shows us that this is not true. To use some jargon, a dendrogram is only
accurate when data satisfies the ultra metric tree inequality, and this is
unlikely for any real-world data.
The consequence of the information loss is that the dendrogram are most
accurate at the bottom, showing which items are very similar.
Allocating observations to clusters
Observations are allocated to clusters by drawing a horizontal line through
the dendrogram. Observations that are joined together below the line are in
clusters. In the example below, we have two clusters. One cluster
combines A and B, and a second cluster combining C, D, E, and F.
Dendrograms cannot tell you how many clusters
you should have
A common mistake people make when reading dendrograms is to assume
that the shape of the dendrogram gives a clue as to how many clusters
exist. In the example above, the (incorrect) interpretation is that the
dendrogram shows that there are two clusters, as the distance between the
clusters (the vertical segments of the dendrogram) are highest between two
and three clusters.
Interpretation of this kind is justified only when the ultrametric tree
inequality holds, which, as mentioned above, is very rare. In general, it is a
mistake to use dendrograms as a tool for determining the number of
clusters in data. Where there is an obviously “correct” number of clusters
this will often be evident in a dendrogram. However, dendrograms often
suggest a correct number of clusters when there is no real evidence to
support the conclusion.
ADVANTAGES
Dendrograms are
1) an easy way to cluster data through an agglomerative approach and
2) Helps understand the data quicker.
3) There is no need to have a pre-defined set of clusters
3) we can see all the possible linkages in the dataset.
COMPONENTS
A dendrogram consists of nodes, branches, and leaves. Nodes are the points where two
clusters merge, branches are the lines that connect the nodes, and leaves are the data
points at the bottom of the dendrogram. The height of a node indicates the distance or
similarity between the clusters that merge at that point.
