Cook's distance — where it appears
Named by 3 essays across 2 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.
The line that one point drew
A single observation among twenty-one reverses the sign of a fitted relationship. Its leverage is known from its x value before the outcome is looked at, so this is a property of the design rather than a surprise in the data.
Two numbers for the fit's geometry
No summary of the dependence between x and y can flag Anscombe's third and fourth datasets. A summary of the fit's own geometry can, and it takes two numbers of different kinds: the largest leverage, which reads the design before any y is seen and flags the fourth with certainty, and the largest deleted residual against a Bonferroni threshold, which flags the third at 1,192 and raises a false alarm on 4.78% of honest datasets. The rule of thumb most often quoted, Cook's distance over 4/n, flags the honest line too — and 66.45% of honest datasets like it.
Two points that hide each other
One far observation among twenty-one has a Cook's distance of 24.1. Put a second beside it and the two read 0.966 and 0.772, neither crossing 1, while together they reverse the slope and deleting both moves the fit by 53.3.
Named alongside it
The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.
LeverageBonferroniInfluenceLeast squaresModel diagnosticsOutliersStudentised residualAnscombe quartetClosed formFalse-positiveGroup deletionHat matrix