CATEGORICAL PREDICTORS

* As well as coping with continuous predictors such as age and height, GAMs can also deal with categorical predictors such as sex and colour.

* These are often easier to deal with than continuous predictors. To smooth Y, the Y values in each category can simply be averaged.

* This satisfies the requirements for a smoother, it captures the trend of Y on X and is smoother than the Y-values themselves.

Generalized Additive Models 23.4.96 Page : 4 of 15