what does eigenvalues expres in the covariance matrix?

Question: what does eigenvalues expres in the covariance matrix?

is there a relationship between a covariance matrix and eigenvalues? like an example   Let us consider a 321 × 261 image dimention 321 × 261 = 83781. We have only 32 observations and 83781 unknowns then we have a matrix of (32 row X 83781 column)   then we will calculate the covariance matrix (32 X 32) so we get 32 eigenvalues the question is: does these eigenvalues express the 32 images? or there is no any relationship between eigenvalues and images   thanks for you,  

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Expert Answer

Prashant Kumar answered . 2025-11-20

Eigenvalues play a crucial role in understanding the covariance matrix, especially in the context of dimensionality reduction techniques like Principal Component Analysis (PCA).

Relationship Between Covariance Matrix and Eigenvalues

The covariance matrix captures the variance and covariance (linear relationship) among the variables (or features) in your data. When you compute the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the covariance matrix, they provide valuable information about the data's structure.

• Eigenvalues: Represent the magnitude of the variance along the new principal axes (eigenvectors). The larger the eigenvalue, the more significant the corresponding principal component.

• Eigenvectors: Represent the directions of the new principal axes in the feature space.

Example Scenario

Let's break down your example:

1. Image Dimensions: Each image is 321 × 261 pixels, totaling 83781 features (pixels).

2. Observations: You have 32 observations (images).

3. Data Matrix: Your data matrix X is of size 32 × 83781.

4. Covariance Matrix: To reduce dimensionality, you compute the covariance matrix of size 32 × 32.

When you compute the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of this covariance matrix:

• Eigenvalues: You get 32 eigenvalues, one for each principal component. These eigenvalues indicate the amount of variance captured by each component.

• Eigenvectors: You also get 32 eigenvectors, each of dimension 32, representing the directions in which the data varies the most.

Interpretation

The 32 eigenvalues express the importance of each of the 32 principal components. These components are linear combinations of the original 83781 features (pixels).

Important Points:

• The eigenvalues do not directly represent the 32 images but indicate how much variance each principal component captures in the data.

• The principal components (corresponding to the eigenvectors) are the new feature space axes along which the data can be projected.

Practical Insight

When you use PCA, you often retain a subset of the principal components that capture most of the variance in the data. For example, if the first few eigenvalues are significantly larger than the rest, you might decide to retain only those components, effectively reducing the dimensionality of your dataset while preserving most of the important information.

Example in MATLAB

Here's a brief MATLAB example to illustrate this:

% Assume X is your data matrix of size (32 x 83781)
X = rand(32, 83781); % Example data matrix

% Compute the covariance matrix (32 x 32)
covMatrix = cov(X);

% Perform eigenvalue decomposition
[eigVectors, eigValuesMatrix] = eig(covMatrix);
eigValues = diag(eigValuesMatrix);

% Sort the eigenvalues and eigenvectors
[eigValuesSorted, idx] = sort(eigValues, 'descend');
eigVectorsSorted = eigVectors(:, idx);

% Display the eigenvalues
disp('Eigenvalues:');
disp

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