[R-sig-ME] wider than expected confidence intervals with lsmeans and predict.glmmadmb

Evan Palmer-Young ecp52 at cornell.edu
Sun May 28 23:20:23 CEST 2017


Thank you for this suggestion; it looks like you already implemented what
Prof. Maindonald suggested.

In your (RVL's) J. Stat Software article on lsmeans
<https://www.jstatsoft.org/article/view/v069i01>, Section 5.1, you wrote:


* Note that it is a mistake to try to use confidence intervals to judge
comparisons. In this example, the standard errors of comparisons are much
smaller than those of the LS means, because the between-block and
between-plot variations cancel out in the comparisons. *

I think that this is what John Maindonald indicated, too.

Is it possible that some packages (glmmADMB?) provide predict() estimates
that include the random-effect variance referred to in the quotation, and
others do not? Or that some produce confidence intervals whereas others
produce prediction intervals (i.e., by addition of the residual variance),
as differentiated in the glmm FAQ
<https://github.com/bbolker/mixedmodels-misc/blob/master/glmmFAQ.rmd#predictions-andor-confidence-or-prediction-intervals-on-predictions>,
section on Prediction and Confidence Intervals?

I posted a query to the glmmADMB
<https://github.com/bbolker/glmmadmb/issues/5> Github page, to see if
somebody with more familiarity to the package might be able to explain
nuances or difference. This thread has been cross-referenced with that
question.

Thank you again for your patience and thorough explanations!
Much appreciated,
Evan


On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 12:00 AM, Lenth, Russell V <russell-lenth at uiowa.edu>
wrote:

> If the SE of a mean is exactly 1/2 the SE of the difference of two means
> -- which is almost never the case -- it would be appropriate to use
> overlapping confidence intervals to test comparisons of means. So, you
> should almost never try to do that. In mixed models, it is not at all
> unusual to have huge discrepancies among standard errors.
>
> However, 'lsmeans' does offer an ad hoc method for the graphical
> comparisons you have in mind. Try this:
>
>     lsm.TMB<- lsmeans(m.nb2, ~FoodTreatment)
>     plot(lsm.TMB, comparisons = TRUE)
>
> This will plot both confidence intervals (in blue) and "comparison arrows"
> (in red). Non-overlapping comparison arrows will indicate cases where
> differences are significant. You can have just the comparison arrows by
> using:
>
>     plot(lsm.TMB, intervals = FALSE, comparisons = TRUE)
>
> In either case, as I say, it is an ad hoc method, and it doesn't always
> work, especially when there are widely variable standard errors. A warning
> is issued if it can't figure out a solution.
>
> Russ
> --
> Russell V. Lenth  -  Professor Emeritus
> Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science
> The University of Iowa  -  Iowa City, IA 52242  USA
> Voice (319)335-0712  -  FAX (319)335-3017
> russell-lenth at uiowa.edu  -  http://www.stat.uiowa.edu/~rlenth/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> Date: Fri, 26 May 2017 17:29:52 -0400
> From: Evan Palmer-Young <ecp52 at cornell.edu>
> To: John Maindonald <john.maindonald at anu.edu.au>
> Cc: R-mixed models mailing list <r-sig-mixed-models at r-project.org>
> Subject: Re: [R-sig-ME] wider than expected confidence intervals with
>         lsmeans and predict.glmmadmb
> Message-ID:
>         <CAAge6+7v1KY=8GLNqi1Hzg4zyQY0kfSjGvMXM-rhRFC9ER8Kcw at mail.
> gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Thanks very much for your reply, Prof. Maindonald.
>
> I agree that the pairwise comparisons are informative, but it would be
> easiest for readers to see the data on the original scale to show
> differences between groups.
>
> When the lsmeans are plotted from glmmTMB, which fits a model with fixed
> effects identical to those in glmmADMB, the estimates are identical but the
> SE's differ by a factor of 8.
>
> So I am still confused about why the lsmeans plots would reflect pairwise
> differences with some packages but not with glmmADMB.
> In my experience, lsmeans plots of group means from glmer() models are
> also non-overlapping when pairwise comparisons are highly significant.
>
> I have extended the code to illustrate the differences.
>
> library(glmmADMB)
>
> library(lsmeans)
>
> #Use data from worked example
> #http://glmmadmb.r-forge.r-project.org/glmmADMB.html
>
> library(glmmADMB)
> data(Owls)
> str(Owls)
> Owls <- transform(Owls,
>                   Nest=reorder(Nest,NegPerChick),
>                   logBroodSize=log(BroodSize),
>                   NCalls=SiblingNegotiation)
>
>
> m.nb<- glmmadmb(NCalls~FoodTreatment+ArrivalTime+
>            +(1|Nest),
>          data=Owls,
>          zeroInflation=FALSE,
>          family="nbinom")
> summary(m.nb)
> # Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)
> # (Intercept)             4.2674     0.4705    9.07  < 2e-16 ***
> #   FoodTreatmentSatiated  -0.2602     0.0845   -3.08   0.0021 **
> #   ArrivalTime            -0.0840     0.0190   -4.42  9.8e-06 ***
> #Plot lsmeans by FoodTreatment
> owls.lsm<-lsmeans(m.nb, ~FoodTreatment)
> owls.lsm
> # FoodTreatment   lsmean        SE df asymp.LCL asymp.UCL
> # Deprived      2.188727 0.7205142 NA 0.7765454  3.600909
> # Satiated      1.928499 0.7498151 NA 0.4588887  3.398110
> #SE is much higher than for fixed effects in model
>
> plot(owls.lsm)
>  #95% confidence bands overlap almost entirely
>
> #Confirm with predict.glmmadmb:
> New.data<-expand.grid(FoodTreatment= levels(Owls$FoodTreatment),
>                       ArrivalTime = mean(Owls$ArrivalTime))
>
> New.data$NCalls <- predict(m.nb, New.data, re.form=NA, SE.fit = TRUE)
>
> #Get standard errors:
> calls.pred<- predict(m.nb, New.data, re.form = NA, se.fit = TRUE)
> calls.pred<-data.frame(calls.pred)
>
> New.data$SE<-calls.pred$se.fit
> New.data
> # FoodTreatment ArrivalTime   NCalls        SE
> # 1      Deprived    24.75763 2.188727 0.7205142
> # 2      Satiated    24.75763 1.928499 0.7498151
> #Matches with lsmeans output
>
>
>
> ##################  Compare to glmmTDMB  ####################
> #install.packages("glmmTMB")
> library(glmmTMB)
> m.nb2<- glmmTMB(NCalls~FoodTreatment+ArrivalTime+
>                   +(1|Nest),
>                 data=Owls,
>                 family="nbinom2")
> summary(m.nb2)
> # Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)
> # (Intercept)            4.91011    0.63343   7.752 9.07e-15 ***
> #   FoodTreatmentSatiated -0.69238    0.10692  -6.476 9.44e-11 ***
> #   ArrivalTime           -0.11540    0.02526  -4.569 4.90e-06 ***
>
> #Compare to glmmADMB model:Fixed effects are identical
> summary(m.nb)
> # Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)
> # (Intercept)             4.9101     0.6334    7.75  9.1e-15 ***
> #   FoodTreatmentSatiated  -0.6924     0.1069   -6.48  9.4e-11 ***
> #   ArrivalTime            -0.1154     0.0253   -4.57  4.9e-06 ***
>
> #Plot lsmeans by FoodTreatment
> owls.lsm<-lsmeans(m.nb2, ~FoodTreatment) #oops, lsmeans can't use glmmTMB
> object!
>
>   ########   Interlude   #######
> #Ben Bolker wrote a function to talk to lsmeans-- incredible!
> # https://github.com/glmmTMB/glmmTMB/issues/205
> recover.data.glmmTMB <- function(object, ...) {
>   fcall <- getCall(object)
>   recover.data(fcall,delete.response(terms(object)),
>                attr(model.frame(object),"na.action"), ...) }
> lsm.basis.glmmTMB <- function (object, trms, xlev, grid, vcov.,
>                                mode = "asymptotic", component="cond", ...)
> {
>   if (mode != "asymptotic") stop("only asymptotic mode is available")
>   if (component != "cond") stop("only tested for conditional component")
>   if (missing(vcov.))
>     V <- as.matrix(vcov(object)[[component]])
>   else V <- as.matrix(.my.vcov(object, vcov.))
>   dfargs = misc = list()
>   if (mode == "asymptotic") {
>     dffun = function(k, dfargs) NA
>   }
>   ## use this? misc = .std.link.labels(family(object), misc)
>   contrasts = attr(model.matrix(object), "contrasts")
>   m = model.frame(trms, grid, na.action = na.pass, xlev = xlev)
>   X = model.matrix(trms, m, contrasts.arg = contrasts)
>   bhat = fixef(object)[[component]]
>   if (length(bhat) < ncol(X)) {
>     kept = match(names(bhat), dimnames(X)[[2]])
>     bhat = NA * X[1, ]
>     bhat[kept] = fixef(object)[[component]]
>     modmat = model.matrix(trms, model.frame(object), contrasts.arg =
> contrasts)
>     nbasis = estimability::nonest.basis(modmat)
>   }
>   else nbasis = estimability::all.estble
>   list(X = X, bhat = bhat, nbasis = nbasis, V = V, dffun = dffun,
>        dfargs = dfargs, misc = misc)
> }
>
> #####   End interlude ###
>
> lsm.TMB<- lsmeans(m.nb2, ~FoodTreatment)
> plot(lsm.TMB)  #non-overlapping CI's
>
> #Compare SE's
> owls.lsm
> # FoodTreatment   lsmean       * SE* df  asymp.LCL asymp.UCL
> # Deprived      2.053073 *0.8952071* NA  0.2984988  3.807646
> # Satiated      1.360690 *0.9037320 *NA -0.4105918  3.131973
>
> lsm.TMB
> # FoodTreatment   lsmean        *SE* df asymp.LCL asymp.UCL
> # Deprived      2.053065 *0.1068562* NA  1.843631  2.262500
> # Satiated      1.360683 *0.1161322* NA  1.133068  1.588298
>
> #lsmeans are identical but SE's differ by factor of 8?!
>
>
> Thank you again.
> Evan
>



-- 
Evan Palmer-Young
PhD candidate
Department of Biology
221 Morrill Science Center
611 North Pleasant St
Amherst MA 01003
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VGvOypoAAAAJ&hl=en
https://sites.google.com/a/cornell.edu/evan-palmer-young/
epalmery at cns.umass.edu
ecp52 at cornell.edu

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