Generative models for functional data using phase and amplitude separation

Constructing generative models for functional observations is an important task in statistical functional analysis. In general, functional data contains both phase (or x or horizontal) and amplitude (or y or vertical) variability. Traditional methods often ignore the phase variability and focus solely on the amplitude variation, using cross-sectional techniques such as fPCA for dimensional reduction and data modeling. Ignoring phase variability leads to a loss of structure in the data and inefficiency in data models. This paper presents an approach that relies on separating the phase (x-axis) and amplitude (y-axis), then modeling these components using joint distributions. This separation, in turn, is performed using a technique called elastic shape analysis of curves that involves a new mathematical representation of functional data. Then, using individual fPCAs, one each for phase and amplitude components, it imposes joint probability models on principal coefficients of these components while respecting the nonlinear geometry of the phase representation space. These ideas are demonstrated using random sampling, for models estimated from simulated and real datasets, and show their superiority over models that ignore phase-amplitude separation. Furthermore, the generative models are applied to classification of functional data and achieve high performance in applications involving SONAR signals of underwater objects, handwritten signatures, and periodic body movements recorded by smart phones.