Learn R Programming

EffectStars (version 1.1)

star.nominal: Effect stars for multinomial logit models

Description

The function computes and visualizes multinomial logit models. The computation is done with help of the package VGAM. The visualization is based on the function stars from the package graphics.

Usage

star.nominal(formula, data, xij = NULL, conf.int = FALSE, symmetric = TRUE, 
    pred.coding = "reference", printpvalues = TRUE, test.rel = TRUE, refLevel = 1, 
    maxit = 100, scale = TRUE, nlines = NULL, select = NULL, catstar = TRUE, 
    dist.x = 1, dist.y = 1, dist.cov = 1, dist.cat = 1, xpd = TRUE, main = "", 
    lwd.stars = 1, col.fill = "gray90", col.circle = "black", lwd.circle = 1, 
    lty.circle = "longdash", lty.conf = "dotted", cex.labels = 1, cex.cat = 0.8, 
    xlim = NULL, ylim = NULL)

Arguments

formula
An object of class formula. Formula for the multinomial logit model to be fitted and visualized.
data
An object of class data.frame containing the covariates used in formula.
xij
An object of class list, used if category-specific covariates are to be inlcuded. Every element is a formula referring to one of the category-specific covariates. For details see help for xij in
conf.int
If TRUE, confidence intervals are drawn.
symmetric
Which side constraint for the coefficients in the multinomial logit model shall be used for the plot? Default TRUE uses symmetric side constraints, FALSE uses the reference category specified by refLevel.
pred.coding
Which coding for categorical predictors with more than two categories is to be used? Default pred.coding="reference" uses the first category as reference category, the alternative pred.coding="effect" uses effect coding equival
printpvalues
If TRUE, p-values for the respective coefficients are printed besides the category labels. P-values are recieved by a Wald test.
test.rel
Provides a Likelihood-Ratio-Test to test the relevance of the explanatory covariates. The corresponding p-values will be printed behind the covariates labels. test.rel=FALSE might save a lot of time.
refLevel
Reference category for multinomial logit model. Ignored if symmetric=TRUE. See also multinomial.
maxit
Maximal number of iterations to fit the multinomial logit model. See also vglm.control.
scale
If TRUE, the stars are scaled to equal maximal ray length.
nlines
If specified, nlines gives the number of lines in which the effect stars are plotted.
select
Numeric vector to choose only a subset of the stars to be plotted. Default is to plot all stars. Numbers refer to total amount of predictors, including intercept and dummy variables.
catstar
A logical argument to specify if all category-specific effects in the model should be visualized with an additional star. Ignored if xij=NULL.
dist.x
Optional factor to increase/decrease distances between the centers of the stars on the x-axis. Values greater than 1 increase, values smaller than 1 decrease the distances.
dist.y
Optional factor to increase/decrease distances between the centers of the stars on the y-axis. Values greater than 1 increase, values smaller than 1 decrease the distances.
dist.cov
Optional factor to increase/decrease distances between the stars and the covariates labels above the stars. Values greater than 1 increase, values smaller than 1 decrease the distances.
dist.cat
Optional factor to increase/decrease distances between the stars and the category labels around the stars. Values greater than 1 increase, values smaller than 1 decrease the distances.
xpd
If FALSE, all plotting is clipped to the plot region, if TRUE, all plotting is clipped to the figure region, and if NA, all plotting is clipped to the device region. See also
main
An overall title for the plot. See also plot.
lwd.stars
Line width of the stars. See also lwd in par.
col.fill
Color of background of the circle. See also col in par.
col.circle
Color of margin of the circle. See also col in par.
lwd.circle
Line width of the circle. See also lwd in par.
lty.circle
Line type of the circle. See also lty in par.
lty.conf
Line type of confidence intervals. Ignored, if conf.int=FALSE. See also lty in par.
cex.labels
Size of labels for covariates placed above the corresponding star. See also cex in par.
cex.cat
Size of labels for categories placed around the corresponding star. See also cex in par.
xlim
Optional specification of the x coordinates ranges. See also xlim in plot.window
ylim
Optional specification of the y coordinates ranges. See also ylim in plot.window

Value

  • P-values are only available if the corresponding option is set TRUE. catspec and catspecse are only available if xij is specified.
  • oddsOdds or exponential coefficients of the multinomial logit model
  • coefficientsCoefficients of the multinomial logit model
  • seStandard errors of the coefficients
  • pvaluesP-values of Wald tests for the respective coefficients
  • catspecCoefficients for the category-specific covariates
  • catspecseStandard errors for the coefficients for the category-specific covariates
  • p_relP-values of Likelihood-Ratio-Tests for the relevance of the explanatory covariates
  • xlimxlim values that were automatically produced. May be helpfull if you want to specify your own xlim
  • ylimylim values that were automatically produced. May be helpfull if you want to specify your own ylim

encoding

UTF-8

Details

The underlying models are fitted with the function vglm from the package VGAM. The family argument for vglm is multinomial(parallel=FALSE). The stars show the exponentials of the estimated coefficients. In multinomial logit models the exponential coefficients can be interpreted as odds. More precisely, for the model with symmetric side constraints, the exponential $e^{\gamma_{rj}}, r=1,\ldots,k$ represents the multiplicative effect of the covariate j on the odds $\frac{P(Y=r|x)}{GM(x)}$ if $x_j$ increases by one unit and $GM(x)$ is the median response. For the model with reference category k, the exponential $e^{\gamma_{rj}}, r=1,\ldots,k-1$ represents the multiplicative effect of the covariate j on the odds $\frac{P(Y=r|x)}{P(Y=k|x)}$ if $x_j$ increases by one unit. In addition to the stars, we plot a cirlce that refers to the case where the coefficients of the corresponding star are zero. Therefore, the radii of these circles are always $exp(0)=1$. If scale=TRUE, the stars are scaled so that they all have the same maximal ray length. In this case, the actual appearances of the circles differ, but they still refer to the no-effects case where all the coefficients are zero. Now the circles can be used to compare different stars based on their respective circles radii. The distances between the rays of a star and the cirlce correspond to the p-values that are printed beneath the category levels if printpvalues=TRUE. The closer a star ray lies to the no--effects circle, the more the p-value is increased. The p-values beneath the covariate labels, which are given if test.rel=TRUE, correspond to the distance between the circle and the star as a whole. They refer to a likelihood ratio test if all the coefficients from one covariate are zero (i.e. the variable is left out completely) and thus would lie exactly upon the cirlce. The appearance of the circles can be modified by col.circle, lwd.circle and lty.circle. The argument xij is important because it has to be used to include category-specific covariates. If its default xij=NULL is kept, an ordinary multinomial logit model without category-specific covariates is fitted. If category-specific covariates are to be included, attention has to be paid to the exact usage of xij. Our xij argument is identical to the xij argument used in the embedded vglm function. For details see also vglm.control. The data are thought to be present in a wide format, i.e. a category-specific covariate consists of k columns. Before calling star.nominal, the values for the reference category (defined by refLevel) have to be subtracted from the values of the further categories. Additionally, the resulting variable for the first response category (but not the reference category) has to be duplicated. This duplicate should be denoted by an appropriate name for the category-specific variable, independent from the different response categories. It will be used as an assignment variable for the corresponding coefficient of the covariate and has to be included in to the formula. For every category-specific covariate, a formula has to be specified in the xij argument. On the left hand side of that formula, the assignment variable has to be placed. On the right hand side, the variables containing the differences from the values for the reference category are written. So the left hand side of the formula contains k-1 terms. The order of these terms has to be chosen according to the order of the response categories, ignoring the reference category. Examples for effect stars for models with category-specific covariates are recieved by typing vignette("election") or vignette("plebiscite"). It is strongly recommended to standardize metric covariates, display of effect stars can benefit greatly as in general differences between the coefficients are increased.

References

Tutz, G. and Schauberger, G. (2012): Visualization of Categorical Response Models - from Data Glyphs to Parameter Glyphs, Department of Statistics, LMU Munich, Technical Report 117. Gerhard Tutz (2012): Regression for Categorical Data, Cambridge University Press

See Also

star.sequential, star.cumulative

Examples

Run this code
vignette("election")
vignette("alligator")
vignette("coffee")
vignette("plebiscite")
vignette("PID")
vignette("BEPS")
vignette("womenlabour")

Run the code above in your browser using DataLab