[R-meta] Question on funnel plot interpretation

[Michael Dewey]

Dear Gabriel

My interpretation looking at your plots is that you have a very strange 
set of primary studies. If the x-axis is really the z transformation of 
r then some of  the r are .999 and some 0.001 which seems worthy of 
investigation before looking further.

Michael

On 05/07/2023 09:14, Gabriel Cotlier via R-sig-meta-analysis wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I have produced a funnel plot on the basis of an rma.mv 
> <http://rma.mv>() objectapplied to all the data set together ( not 
> subsetting  using moderators ) as follows:
> 
> image.png
> 
> 
> When looking at the figure I tried to think that maybe one of the 
> following two interpretations could be the correct one:
> 
> a.  There is a kind of random scattering of the effect sizes, therefore 
> no symmetry is found and thus publication bised is observed.
> b.  Given the randomness of the effect sizes distribution covering the 
> plot's space unevenly there is not a clear pattern that can indicate 
> publication bias is observed.
> 
> Is any of this interpretation the correct one?
> 
> Thanks a lot.
> Kind regards,
> Gabriel
> 
> 
> #### CODE. ######
> funnel_all <- rma.mv <http://rma.mv>(yi,
>                       vi,
>                       random = ~ 1 | Article / Sample_ID,
>                       data=dat)
> png(file = "funnel.png",
>      width = 250,
>      height = 200,
>      res = 600,
>      units = "mm")
> # par(mfrow = c(2, 1))
> 
> # full data
> f1 <- funnel(funnel_all,
>               yaxis = "seinv",
>               level = c(90, 95, 99),
>               ylim = c(1, 20),
>               shade = c("white", "gray55", "gray75"),
>               refline = 0,
>               legend = TRUE)
> mtext("A", side = 3, line = 0, adj = -0.13, cex = 2)
> 
> dev.off()
> 
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-- 
Michael
http://www.dewey.myzen.co.uk/home.html