Conditional Probability

Contents

Conditional Probability#

A conditional probability can be generalized by the phrase.

**"What is the probability of y given x"**

Which is defined with the division rule and notated as,

\[ \boxed{P(y \mid x) \equiv \frac{P(x\cap y )}{P(x)}} \]

  • \(P(x\cap y)\) : The joint probability of both \(x\) and \(y\) occuring

  • The RHS comes from an axiom of probability.

Bayes’ Rule#

Bayes’ rule (or Bayes’ Theorem) describes the probability of two relating events \(x\) and \(y\). If we have information on a priori (i.e., first event) then we can more accurately determine the probability of a posteriori (i.e., second event)

\[\begin{split} \boxed{P(y \mid x) = \frac{P(x \mid y) P(y)}{P(x)}}\\ \end{split}\]

  • \(P(y \mid x)\) : Posterior

  • \(P(y)\) : Prior

  • The denominator is called the marginal probability which is given by,

    \[ P(x) = \sum_{y \in Y}{P(x \mid y)P(y)} \]

  • The numerator is the joint probability between \(x\) and \(y\) $\( P(x \cap y) = P(x \mid y) P(y) \)$

    Once again the \(x\) and \(y\) can be swapped since \(x \cap y = y \cap x\)

  • Plugging in the marginal probability and the joint probability, we see that the conditional probability is the joint probability normalized by the marginal.

    \[ P(y \mid x) = \frac{P(x \cap y)}{\sum_\limits{y\in Y} P(x \cap y)} \]

  • Uniform Distribution: Like before, when each event in the outcome space are equally likely then the conditional probability is,

\[ P(A\mid B) = \frac{\abs{A \cap B}}{\abs B} \]
Contents