Skip to content
Prev 12315 / 20628 Next

Getting intraclass correlations from a binomial mixed model with logit link

Hi Ulf,

1. You can compute the following intraclass correlations. Let S (short for Subject) be the ID random intercept variance, I be the Item:Emotion random intercept variance, and E be the Emotion random intercept variance.


Correlation between responses with same Emotion, different Items, different IDs:
E / (S + I + E + pi^2/3)

Correlation between responses with same Emotion, same Items, different IDs:
(E + I) / (S + I + E + pi^2/3)

Correlation between responses with different Emotions, different Items, same IDs:
S / (S + I + E + pi^2/3)

Correlation between responses with same Emotions, different Items, same IDs:
(S + E) / (S + I + E + pi^2/3)

Correlation between responses with same Emotions, same Items, same IDs:
(S + I + E) / (S + I + E + pi^2/3)

2. The ICCs above are based on taking a latent variable view of the model. That is, we assume the responses arise from an underlying latent variable with a logistic distribution, and this logistic variable gets dichotomized around some threshold, so that we observe 0 below the threshold and 1 above the threshold. The ICCs above estimate various expected correlations in the value of this latent logistic variable. 

As hinted above, the intraclass correlation coefficient is, well, a bona fide correlation coefficient. So taking the inverse logit of a correlation doesn't really make sense.

The latent variable approach is nice because we don't have to specify a particular value of the predictor at which to assess the ICC. If you just want to talk about correlations involving the actually observed binary variable, with no latent variable baggage, you can do that, but you have to specify the expected value of Y that you're interested in (e.g., specify the values of all the predictors). That's because the variance of a binary variable depends on the mean, so accordingly the ICC is different for different expected Y values. In my opinion the notion of ICC loses its usefulness and intuitive appeal in this context. But if you want to compute it anyway, you can follow the simulation advice offered by Goldstein, Browne, & Rasbash, 2002, section 3.2.

http://www.bris.ac.uk/cmm/research/pvmm.pdf

Jake