[R] How to assess significance of random effect in lme4

[Shige Song]

Dear All,

With kind help from several friends on the list, I am getting close.
Now here are something interesting I just realized: for random
effects, lmer reports standard deviation instead of standard error! Is
there a hidden option that tells lmer to report standard error of
random effects, like most other multilevel or mixed modeling software,
so that we can say something like "randome effect for xxx is
significant, while randome effect for xxx is not significant"? Thanks!

Best,
Shige