p-value absense in output lmer
Simon Blomberg <s.blomberg1 at ...> writes:
Q2: Does the fact that many of those numbers are above 0.95 worry anybody else? I would not have expected such high correlations in "real biological data".
Not really. If the data are not centred, then you expect big correlations between the slopes and intercepts. It can help to centre the data for numerical reasons, but it shouldn't affect the inferences. Or am I wrong? Please correct me, someone!
I believe that's correct. I don't always centre by default, but it's worth doing (1) for computational purposes, especially when getting convergence warnings etc.; (2) for inferential purposes, especially when fitting models with interactions (i.e. with interactions present, the main effects of parameters will be estimated and reported at the 'zero' level of any continuous predictors). So far, I haven't seen an example where the actual fitting went wrong (silently) because of undue correlations among the input variables. Very large correlations (|rho|>0.99) might suggest identifiability problems. There is a whole literature on dealing with collinear predictors (which is a subset of those that can give rise to correlated parameters -- see Zuur et al 2009 doi: 10.1111/j.2041-210X.2009.00001.x, but it's a delicate subject (in my opinion) depending on the goal of your analysis and the kinds of errors you're willing to subject yourself to.