A Normality Test for High-dimensional Data based on a Nearest Neighbor Approach

Abstract: Many statistical methodologies for high-dimensional data assume the population is normal. Although a few multivariate normality tests have been proposed, to the best of our knowledge, none of them can properly control the type I error when the dimension is larger than the number of observations. In this work, we propose a novel nonparametric test that utilizes the nearest neighbor information. The proposed method guarantees the asymptotic type I error control under the high-dimensional setting. Simulation studies verify the empirical size performance of the proposed test when the dimension grows with the sample size and at the same time exhibit a superior power performance of the new test compared with alternative methods. We also illustrate our approach through two popularly used data sets in high-dimensional classification and clustering literatures where deviation from the normality assumption may lead to invalid conclusions.