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Message-ID: <a4bc9a8c-8f87-cb1b-423c-08533025f16b@gmail.com>
Date: 2021-04-04T22:58:10Z
From: Ben Bolker
Subject: Confidence interval around random effect variances in place of p-value
In-Reply-To: <CA+sL+8URe+6p4Qd8uZpa_=m3bOffoQvDRbRcfFK6qDMe5XF13Q@mail.gmail.com>

This would make an interesting simulation and/or theoretical exercise 
(I'm going to resist the urge to do it), i.e. identifying the 
correspondence between p-values constructed from parametric bootstrap 
full-vs-reduced model comparisons and p-values estimated as fraction of 
PB fits of full model that give variance=0 for the tested variance 
component(s).

On 4/2/21 8:22 PM, Jack Solomon wrote:
> Well, how about concluding so:
> 
> If a (say 2-level) model gives a singular fit (even though perhaps there 
> is a "tol" that is small but not exactly "0" for that warning to show 
> up), that would mean we have a "practically" non-significant 
> random-effect variance component.
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Apr 2, 2021 at 7:15 PM Ben Bolker <bbolker at gmail.com 
> <mailto:bbolker at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>      ? ? I'm not sure that the bootstrapped CIs *wouldn't* work; they might
>     return the correct proportion of singular fits ...
> 
>     On 4/2/21 8:12 PM, Jack Solomon wrote:
>      > Thank you all?very much. So, I can conclude that a likelihood
>     ratio test
>      > and/or a parametric bootstrapping can be used for random effect
>     variance
>      > component hypothesis?testing.
>      >
>      > But I also concluded that the idea of simply using a bootstrapped
>     CI for
>      > a random-effect variance component [e.g., in lme4;
>      > confint(model,method="boot",oldNames=FALSE)? ] by definition
>     can't be
>      > used for significance testing, because it requires the
>     possibility of
>      > seeing sd = 0 which can't be "strictly" captured by such a CI from a
>      > multilevel model (at least not easily so).
>      >
>      > I hope my conclusions are correct,
>      > Thank you all, Jack
>      >
>      > On Fri, Apr 2, 2021 at 6:51 PM Ben Bolker <bbolker at gmail.com
>     <mailto:bbolker at gmail.com>
>      > <mailto:bbolker at gmail.com <mailto:bbolker at gmail.com>>> wrote:
>      >
>      >? ? ? ? Sure. If all you want is p-values, I'd recommend parametric
>      >? ? ?bootstrapping (implemented in the pbkrtest package) ... that
>     will avoid
>      >? ? ?these difficulties.? (I would also make sure that you know
>     *why* you
>      >? ? ?want p-values on the random effects ... they have all of the
>     issues of
>      >? ? ?regular p-values plus some extras:
>      >
>     http://bbolker.github.io/mixedmodels-misc/glmmFAQ.html#testing-significance-of-random-effects
>     <http://bbolker.github.io/mixedmodels-misc/glmmFAQ.html#testing-significance-of-random-effects>
>      >   
>      ?<http://bbolker.github.io/mixedmodels-misc/glmmFAQ.html#testing-significance-of-random-effects <http://bbolker.github.io/mixedmodels-misc/glmmFAQ.html#testing-significance-of-random-effects>>
>      >
>      >? ? ?)
>      >
>      >? ? ?On 4/2/21 7:37 PM, Jack Solomon wrote:
>      >? ? ? > Thanks. Just to make sure, to declare?a statistically
>      >? ? ?NON-significant
>      >? ? ? > random effect variance component, the lower?bound of the
>     CI must be
>      >? ? ? > EXACTLY "0", right?
>      >? ? ? >
>      >? ? ? > Tha is, for example, a CI like: [.0002, .14] is a
>      >? ? ? > statistically?significant random-effect variance component but
>      >? ? ?one that
>      >? ? ? > perhaps borders a p-value of relatively close to but
>     smaller than
>      >? ? ?.05,
>      >? ? ? > right?
>      >? ? ? >
>      >? ? ? > On Fri, Apr 2, 2021 at 6:19 PM Ben Bolker
>     <bbolker at gmail.com <mailto:bbolker at gmail.com>
>      >? ? ?<mailto:bbolker at gmail.com <mailto:bbolker at gmail.com>>
>      >? ? ? > <mailto:bbolker at gmail.com <mailto:bbolker at gmail.com>
>     <mailto:bbolker at gmail.com <mailto:bbolker at gmail.com>>>> wrote:
>      >? ? ? >
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? ? ?This seems like a potential can of worms (as
>     indeed are all
>      >? ? ? >? ? ?hypothesis tests of null values on a boundary ...)
>     However,
>      >? ? ?in this
>      >? ? ? >? ? ?case
>      >? ? ? >? ? ?bootstrapping (provided you have resampled appropriately -
>      >? ? ?you may need
>      >? ? ? >? ? ?to do hierarchical bootstrapping ...) seems reasonable,
>      >? ? ?because a null
>      >? ? ? >? ? ?model would give you singular fits (i.e. estimated
>     sd=0) half
>      >? ? ?of the
>      >? ? ? >? ? ?time ...
>      >? ? ? >
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? ? ?Happy to hear more informed opinions.
>      >? ? ? >
>      >? ? ? >? ? ?On 4/2/21 6:55 PM, Jack Solomon wrote:
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? > Dear All,
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? >
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? > A colleague of mine suggested that I use the
>     bootstrapped CIs
>      >? ? ? >? ? ?around my
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? > model's random effect variances in place of
>     p-values for them.
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? >
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? > But random effect variances (or sds) start from
>     "0". So,
>      >? ? ?to declare a
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? > statistically NON-significant random effect variance
>      >? ? ?component, the
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? > lower bound of the CI must be EXACTLY "0", right?
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? >
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? > Thank you very much,
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? > Jack
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? >
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? >? ? ? ?[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>      >? ? ? >? ? ? >
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