Class-specific tests of spatial segregation based on nearest neighbor contingency tables

Abstract

The spatial interaction between two or more classes might cause multivariate clustering patterns such as segregation or association, which can be tested using a nearest neighbor contingency table (NNCT). The null hypothesis is randomness in the nearest neighbor structure, which may result from random labeling (RL) or complete spatial randomness of points from two or more classes (which is henceforth called CSR independence). We consider Dixon's class-specific segregation test and introduce a new class-specific test, which is a new decomposition of Dixon's overall chi-squared segregation statistic. We analyze the distributional properties and compare the empirical significant levels and power estimates of the tests using extensive Monte Carlo simulations. We demonstrate that the new class-specific tests have comparable performance with the currently available tests based on NNCTs. For illustrative purposes, we use three example data sets and provide guidelines for using these tests.