Variable selection and interpretation in canonical correlation analysis

The canonical variates in canonical correlation analysis are often interpreted by looking at the weights or loadings of the variables in each canonical variate and effectively ignoring those variables whose weights or loadings are small. It is shown that such a procedure can be misleading. The related problem of selecting a subset of the original variables which preserves the information in the most important canonical variates is also examined. Because of different possible definitions of ‘the information in canonical variates’, any such subset selection needs very careful consideration.