AI engineering glossary · Probability
What is confounding variable?
Confounding variable: A third variable that influences both the supposed cause and the supposed effect, creating a misleading association between them. Ignoring it can make a relationship appear where none exists. Controlling for it, or randomising, is how analysts separate real effects from spurious ones.
Confounding variable: an example
Hot weather raises both ice cream sales and swimming accidents, so sales and accidents correlate without one causing the other.
Related terms
More Probability terms
- Continuous random variable
- Correlation coefficient
- Correlation vs causation
- Covariance
- Cumulative distribution function
- Dependent events
- Discrete random variable
- Empirical probability
Where you learn it
Confounding variable is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.