ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Sliced inverse regression

Sliced inverse regression is a concept used in statistics to help understand how variables are related to each other. Let's imagine that you have a bunch of toys in a toy box, and you want to figure out which toys are related to each other.

One way to do this is to take the toys out of the box and sort them by their similarities. For example, you might put all of the stuffed animals together, and then put all of the cars together. This is called "slicing" the data.

Once the toys are sorted, you can look at the relationship between the variables by drawing a line through each group. This line is called an "inverse regression" line because it shows how the variables change as you move along the line.

For example, if you have a group of stuffed animals, you might draw an inverse regression line that shows how the size of the animals changes as you move along the line. You might find that the animals get smaller as you move along the line, which would tell you that size is an important factor in how the animals are related to each other.

Overall, sliced inverse regression is a way to help understand how variables are related to each other by sorting the data into groups and then drawing inverse regression lines to see how they change.