Latent variable model

A latent variable model is a statistical model that relates a set of variables (so-called manifest variables) to set of latent variables.

Specializations of the latent variable model can be group according to whether the manifest and latent variables are categorical or continuous:

Manifest variables\Latent variables	Continuous	Categorical
Continuous	Factor analysis	Latent profile analysis
Categorical	Latent trait analysis	Latent class analysis