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Specify a monotonic predictor term in brms. The function does not evaluate its arguments – it exists purely to help set up a model.

Usage

mo(x, id = NA)

Arguments

x

An integer variable or an ordered factor to be modeled as monotonic.

id

Optional character string. All monotonic terms with the same id within one formula will be modeled as having the same simplex (shape) parameter vector. If all monotonic terms of the same predictor have the same id, the resulting predictions will be conditionally monotonic for all values of interacting covariates (Bürkner & Charpentier, 2020).

Details

See Bürkner and Charpentier (2020) for the underlying theory. For detailed documentation of the formula syntax used for monotonic terms, see help(brmsformula) as well as vignette("brms_monotonic").

References

Bürkner P. C. & Charpentier E. (2020). Modeling Monotonic Effects of Ordinal Predictors in Regression Models. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology. doi:10.1111/bmsp.12195

See also

Examples

# \dontrun{
# generate some data
income_options <- c("below_20", "20_to_40", "40_to_100", "greater_100")
income <- factor(sample(income_options, 100, TRUE),
                 levels = income_options, ordered = TRUE)
mean_ls <- c(30, 60, 70, 75)
ls <- mean_ls[income] + rnorm(100, sd = 7)
dat <- data.frame(income, ls)

# fit a simple monotonic model
fit1 <- brm(ls ~ mo(income), data = dat)
#> Compiling Stan program...
#> Start sampling
#> 
#> SAMPLING FOR MODEL 'anon_model' NOW (CHAIN 1).
#> Chain 1: 
#> Chain 1: Gradient evaluation took 2.6e-05 seconds
#> Chain 1: 1000 transitions using 10 leapfrog steps per transition would take 0.26 seconds.
#> Chain 1: Adjust your expectations accordingly!
#> Chain 1: 
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#> Chain 1: 
#> Chain 1:  Elapsed Time: 0.209 seconds (Warm-up)
#> Chain 1:                0.174 seconds (Sampling)
#> Chain 1:                0.383 seconds (Total)
#> Chain 1: 
#> 
#> SAMPLING FOR MODEL 'anon_model' NOW (CHAIN 2).
#> Chain 2: 
#> Chain 2: Gradient evaluation took 1.9e-05 seconds
#> Chain 2: 1000 transitions using 10 leapfrog steps per transition would take 0.19 seconds.
#> Chain 2: Adjust your expectations accordingly!
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#> Chain 2: 
#> Chain 2:  Elapsed Time: 0.207 seconds (Warm-up)
#> Chain 2:                0.181 seconds (Sampling)
#> Chain 2:                0.388 seconds (Total)
#> Chain 2: 
#> 
#> SAMPLING FOR MODEL 'anon_model' NOW (CHAIN 3).
#> Chain 3: 
#> Chain 3: Gradient evaluation took 1.8e-05 seconds
#> Chain 3: 1000 transitions using 10 leapfrog steps per transition would take 0.18 seconds.
#> Chain 3: Adjust your expectations accordingly!
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#> Chain 3: 
#> Chain 3:  Elapsed Time: 0.204 seconds (Warm-up)
#> Chain 3:                0.194 seconds (Sampling)
#> Chain 3:                0.398 seconds (Total)
#> Chain 3: 
#> 
#> SAMPLING FOR MODEL 'anon_model' NOW (CHAIN 4).
#> Chain 4: 
#> Chain 4: Gradient evaluation took 1.9e-05 seconds
#> Chain 4: 1000 transitions using 10 leapfrog steps per transition would take 0.19 seconds.
#> Chain 4: Adjust your expectations accordingly!
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#> Chain 4: 
#> Chain 4:  Elapsed Time: 0.205 seconds (Warm-up)
#> Chain 4:                0.184 seconds (Sampling)
#> Chain 4:                0.389 seconds (Total)
#> Chain 4: 
summary(fit1)
#>  Family: gaussian 
#>   Links: mu = identity 
#> Formula: ls ~ mo(income) 
#>    Data: dat (Number of observations: 100) 
#>   Draws: 4 chains, each with iter = 2000; warmup = 1000; thin = 1;
#>          total post-warmup draws = 4000
#> 
#> Regression Coefficients:
#>           Estimate Est.Error l-95% CI u-95% CI Rhat Bulk_ESS Tail_ESS
#> Intercept    29.41      1.47    26.50    32.31 1.00     2609     2083
#> moincome     15.09      0.68    13.78    16.40 1.00     2420     2137
#> 
#> Monotonic Simplex Parameters:
#>              Estimate Est.Error l-95% CI u-95% CI Rhat Bulk_ESS Tail_ESS
#> moincome1[1]     0.64      0.04     0.57     0.71 1.00     3150     2489
#> moincome1[2]     0.28      0.04     0.20     0.37 1.00     3851     2229
#> moincome1[3]     0.08      0.04     0.01     0.15 1.00     2605     1540
#> 
#> Further Distributional Parameters:
#>       Estimate Est.Error l-95% CI u-95% CI Rhat Bulk_ESS Tail_ESS
#> sigma     7.04      0.51     6.12     8.14 1.00     2876     2192
#> 
#> Draws were sampled using sampling(NUTS). For each parameter, Bulk_ESS
#> and Tail_ESS are effective sample size measures, and Rhat is the potential
#> scale reduction factor on split chains (at convergence, Rhat = 1).
plot(fit1, N = 6)
#> Warning: Argument 'N' is deprecated. Please use argument 'nvariables' instead.

plot(conditional_effects(fit1), points = TRUE)


# model interaction with other variables
dat$x <- sample(c("a", "b", "c"), 100, TRUE)
fit2 <- brm(ls ~ mo(income)*x, data = dat)
#> Error in `$<-.data.frame`(`*tmp*`, "Ic", value = c(0, 1)): replacement has 2 rows, data has 3
summary(fit2)
#> Error: object 'fit2' not found
plot(conditional_effects(fit2), points = TRUE)
#> Error: object 'fit2' not found

# ensure conditional monotonicity
fit3 <- brm(ls ~ mo(income, id = "i")*x, data = dat)
#> Error in `$<-.data.frame`(`*tmp*`, "Ic", value = c(0, 1)): replacement has 2 rows, data has 3
summary(fit3)
#> Error: object 'fit3' not found
plot(conditional_effects(fit3), points = TRUE)
#> Error: object 'fit3' not found
# }