[R-lang] Re: Main effects of categorical predictors in lmer

hossein karimi karimihussein@gmail.com
Mon Oct 10 08:15:45 PDT 2011


Hi Ian,

Thank you for your help.I did what you suggested and got the following
output:
Fixed effects:
                 Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)
(Intercept)        1.1661     0.3285   3.550 0.000385 ***
A                    -2.0741     0.1690 -12.270  < 2e-16 ***
B1                   -0.4166     0.1580  -2.636 0.008389 **
B2                   -0.2867     0.1783  -1.608 0.107842
A:B1                 0.9881     0.1594   6.199 5.68e-10 ***
A:B2                -0.7101     0.1750  -4.059 4.94e-05 ***

I think this is telling me there is a main effect of A, but my problem is
that I also need to report a main effect of B, and that's something I don't
find in this output. I might be thinking in the old ANOVA way, but I think I
should report main effects as well as a main interaction (if there is any)
and then if there's a significant interaction, I should proceed with
breaking down the main interaction to see where exactly it lies, am I right?
or, are lmer results reported differently?

By the way, I also ran a model with NP as a factor too and got the following
result:
Fixed effects:
                  Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)
(Intercept)         0.9371     0.3313   2.829  0.00468 **
A1                   2.0857     0.1700  12.269  < 2e-16 ***
B1                   -0.3075     0.1544  -1.991  0.04646 *
B2                    -0.3651     0.1735  -2.105  0.03533 *
A1:B1              -0.9936     0.1603  -6.199 5.68e-10 ***
A1:B2               0.7139     0.1759   4.058 4.96e-05 ***

The effect of B2 is significant in the first model above but not in
second!!! why is that?

Many thanks,

Hossein




On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 3:27 PM, Finlayson, Ian <IFinlayson@qmu.ac.uk>wrote:

> Hi Hossein,****
>
> ** **
>
> As far as I can see, neither model is correct. If B is a predictor with
> three levels then the model should contain 6 fixed effects: An intercept, A,
> B1 compared to B2, B1 compared to B3, B1 compared to B2 interacting with A,
> and B1 compared to B3 interacting with A.****
>
> ** **
>
> What I suspect you’ve done is actually enter B as a continuous predictor
> with a mean of zero (since you used scale()). You’ll need to keep B as a
> factor, but give it appropriate contrasts:****
>
> ** **
>
> B <- factor(B) # Make sure it’s a factor****
>
> contrasts(B) <- contr.sum(3) # Generate a 3 level contrast matrix using sum
> coding; alternative contr.helmert(3) for Helmhert coding****
>
> ** **
>
> Then build your models.****
>
> ** **
>
> It’s possible that it won’t set the right level as a baseline (the baseline
> will be whichever is a row of -1). If so then you’ll need to manually set up
> the matrix. For sum coding, something like:****
>
> ** **
>
> contrasts(B) <- cbind(c(-1,0,1),c(-1,1,0)) # Assuming that B1 is the first
> row in contrasts(B) – double check!****
>
> ** **
>
> I’d also do something similar with A so that your estimates are comparable
> (if you’ve centered 0 and 1, then it’ll come out -.5 and .5, rather than -1
> and 1)****
>
> ** **
>
> HTH,****
>
> ** **
>
> Ian****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* ling-r-lang-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> ling-r-lang-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] *On Behalf Of *hossein karimi
> *Sent:* 10 October 2011 15:05
> *To:* ling-r-lang-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> *Subject:* [R-lang] Main effects of categorical predictors in lmer****
>
> ** **
>
> Dear R users,****
>
> I’m using mixed effects models (lmer) to predict a binary dependent
> variable as a function of 1.a categorical predictor (A)with 2 levels (A1 and
> A2) , 2. another categorical predictor (B) with three levels (B1, B2 and B3)
> and 3. The interaction between these two predictors. I have tried two models
> but they return different results and I’m not sure which one is correct. I’m
> interested in the main effect of B and the interaction between A and B
> (because A alone has a significant effect in both models). My problem is
> that there seem to be two sensible ways of examining the main effect of B:
> 1. to helmert code and 2. to center.  But these two methods produce opposite
> results! I don’t know which one I should use. Here are the two models with
> some details and their outputs:****
>
> ** **
>
> Model 1: ‘A’ is centered. ‘B’ is helmert coded (‘B1’(baseline)=2, ‘B2’=-1,
> ‘B3’=-1) so that I can get a main effect of B by checking to see whether
> baseline condition in B differs from the mean of B1 and B2 . The lmer output
> returns a significant effect of B and no significant AxB interaction.
> However, as is highlighted below (in pink), the correlation between B and
> the ‘AxB’ interaction is high (-54%).  ****
>
>  ****
>
> > model.1<-lmer(response~A*B+(A+1|sub)+(1|item), mydata, family="binomial")
> ****
>
> > print(model.1)****
>
> Generalized linear mixed model fit by the Laplace approximation ****
>
> Formula: response ~ A * B+ (A + 1 | sub) + (1 | item) ****
>
>    Data: mydata****
>
>  AIC   BIC logLik deviance****
>
> 783 822.6 -383.5      767****
>
> Random effects:****
>
> Groups Name        Variance Std.Dev. Corr  ****
>
>  item   (Intercept) 0.7293   0.85399        ****
>
>  sub    (Intercept) 2.0871   1.44468        ****
>
>         A          1.3812   1.17524  0.562 ****
>
> Number of obs: 1038, groups: item, 42; sub, 36****
>
>  ****
>
> Fixed effects:****
>
>                   Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)    ****
>
> (Intercept)        1.05261    0.30283   3.476 0.000509 *******
>
> A                -3.91080    0.32239 -12.131  < 2e-16 *******
>
> B                  0.36128    0.09751   3.705 0.000211 *******
>
> A:B            -0.29638    0.18681  -1.586 0.112626    ****
>
> ---****
>
> Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1 ****
>
>  ****
>
> Correlation of Fixed Effects:****
>
>                         (Intr)   A      B****
>
> A                  0.155              ****
>
> B                  0.160 -0.278       ****
>
> A:B              -0.156  0.238 -0.540****
>
>  ****
>
> Model 2: ‘A’ and ‘B’ are both centered. The lmer output returns no
> significant effect of B but the A:B interaction is significant. The
> correlations between predictors are generally lower and the correlation
> between B and A:B is reduced to -26%. ****
>
> ** **
>
> Generalized linear mixed model fit by the Laplace approximation ****
>
> Formula: resonse ~ A * B + (A + 1 | sub) + (1 | item) ****
>
>    Data: mydata ****
>
>    AIC   BIC logLik deviance****
>
> 756.1 795.7 -370.1    740.1****
>
> Random effects:****
>
> Groups Name        Variance Std.Dev. Corr  ****
>
>  item   (Intercept) 0.87028  0.93289        ****
>
>  sub    (Intercept) 2.41707  1.55469        ****
>
>         A         1.23669  1.11206  0.533 ****
>
> Number of obs: 1038, groups: item, 42; sub, 36****
>
>  ****
>
> Fixed effects:****
>
>                 Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)    ****
>
> (Intercept)       1.1004     0.3239   3.398 0.000679 *******
>
> A               -4.0941     0.3248 -12.605  < 2e-16 *******
>
> B                -0.1461     0.1400  -1.043 0.296851    ****
>
> A:B             1.7923     0.2818   6.360 2.01e-10 *******
>
> ---****
>
> Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1 ****
>
>  ****
>
> Correlation of Fixed Effects:****
>
>                        (Intr)      A        B****
>
> A                    0.138              ****
>
> B                   -0.148  0.185       ****
>
> A:B                0.106 -0.292 -0.265****
>
>  ****
>
> I personally think Model 2 is better but the thing is that I have centered
> a categorical predictor with *three* levels. In my searches in the web, I
> have never seen a three-level predictor to be centered; they were all
> two-level categorical predictors. ****
>
> I have used the scale() function to center the predictors (I first
> converted them to numeric variables and then used the scale () function to
> center them). As I mentioned, my problem is that I don’t know how to get a
> main effect of B as well as a *main* A:B interaction. On the one hand, it
> seems logical to compare ‘B1’ (baseline) with the mean of the other two B
> conditions to see if the B manipulation has a general effect. On the other
> hand, I hear that one needs to center variables to get a main effect. ****
>
> ** **
>
> I would be grateful of you could please help me****
>
> ** **
>
> Regards,****
>
> ** **
>
> Hossein****
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/ling-r-lang-l/attachments/20111010/36ce47ec/attachment.html 


More information about the ling-r-lang-L mailing list