simulate_lpa: Simulate a latent profile model

In simulab: Simulates a Wide Variety of Data Shapes, Sizes and Distributions

Simulate a latent profile model

Description

Draws each observation from a multivariate normal mixture: a profile is sampled from proportions, then the indicators are drawn from that profile's means, standard deviations and within-profile correlation matrix.

Usage

simulate_lpa(
  n,
  means,
  sds = 1,
  proportions = NULL,
  correlations = NULL,
  labels = NULL,
  seed = NULL,
  batch = NULL
)

Arguments

n	Number of observations. A single whole number of at least 2.
means	Profile-by-variable mean matrix (one row per profile, one column per indicator, at least 2 rows), or a tidy data frame with columns profile, variable and mean. Column names become the indicator columns of the returned data; row names, or the profile values of a tidy table, name the profiles unless labels is given.
sds	Scalar (the default, 1), per-variable vector, profile-by-variable matrix, or a tidy data frame with columns profile, variable and sd. All values must be positive.
proportions	Profile proportions, one positive value per profile; they are rescaled to sum to one. NULL (the default) makes every profile equally likely.
correlations	Optional list of within-profile correlation matrices, one per profile, or a tidy data frame with columns profile, row, column and correlation. NULL (the default) makes the indicators uncorrelated within every profile.
labels	Optional profile labels, one unique value per profile. Defaults to the profile names given with means (the profile values of a tidy table, or the row names of a matrix), else "Profile 1", "Profile 2" and so on.
seed	Optional random seed.
batch	Optional single positive whole number. When given, the simulator runs batch times and returns a plain list of batch results, each exactly what the same call without batch returns. With a seed, every dataset gets its own seed drawn from seed, so the whole batch is reproducible; without one the datasets are consecutive draws from the session's random-number stream. The default NULL returns a single result.

Value

A simulab_sim base data.frame with one row per observation and columns id, profile (the true profile label) and one numeric column per indicator. A parameters component holds one row per profile-by-variable combination with columns profile, variable, mean, sd and proportion.

Examples

# `means` is one row per profile and one column per indicator.
result <- simulate_lpa(
  n = 200,
  means = matrix(c(0, 0, 3, 3), nrow = 2, byrow = TRUE),
  proportions = c(0.6, 0.4),
  seed = 1
)
head(result)
as.data.frame(result, what = "parameters")

simulab documentation built on Oct. 15, 2026, 5:08 p.m.