Each standard contrast family has a default multiple-testing adjustment as
noted below. These adjustments are often only approximate; for a more
exacting adjustment, use the interfaces provided to glht in the
multcomp package.
pairwise.emmc, revpairwise.emmc, and tukey.emmc generate
contrasts for all pairwise comparisons among estimated marginal means at the
levels in levs. The distinction is in which direction they are subtracted.
For factor levels A, B, C, D, pairwise.emmc generates the comparisons
A-B, A-C, A-D, B-C, B-D, and C-D, whereas revpairwise.emmc generates
B-A, C-A, C-B, D-A, D-B, and D-C. tukey.emmc invokes
pairwise.emmc or revpairwise.emmc depending on reverse.
The default multiplicity adjustment method is "tukey", which is only
approximate when the standard errors differ.
poly.emmc generates orthogonal polynomial contrasts, assuming
equally-spaced factor levels. These are derived from the
poly function, but an ad hoc algorithm is used to
scale them to integer coefficients that are (usually) the same as in
published tables of orthogonal polynomial contrasts. The default multiplicity
adjustment method is "none".
trt.vs.ctrl.emmc and its relatives generate contrasts for comparing
one level (or the average over specified levels) with each of the other
levels. The argument ref should be the index(es) (not the labels) of
the reference level(s). trt.vs.ctrl1.emmc is the same as
trt.vs.ctrl.emmc with a reference value of 1, and
trt.vs.ctrlk.emmc is the same as trt.vs.ctrl with a reference
value of length(levs). dunnett.emmc is the same as
trt.vs.ctrl. The default multiplicity adjustment method is
"dunnettx", a close approximation to the Dunnett adjustment.
Note in all of these functions, it is illegal to have any overlap
between the ref levels and the exclude levels. If any is found,
an error is thrown.
consec.emmc and mean_chg.emmc are useful for contrasting
treatments that occur in sequence. For a factor with levels A, B, C, D, E,
consec.emmc generates the comparisons B-A, C-B, and D-C, while
mean_chg.emmc generates the contrasts (B+C+D)/3 - A, (C+D)/2 -
(A+B)/2, and D - (A+B+C)/3. With reverse = TRUE, these differences go
in the opposite direction.
eff.emmc and del.eff.emmc generate contrasts that compare each
level with the average over all levels (in eff.emmc) or over all other
levels (in del.eff.emmc). These differ only in how they are scaled.
For a set of k EMMs, del.eff.emmc gives weight 1 to one EMM and weight
-1/(k-1) to the others, while eff.emmc gives weights (k-1)/k and -1/k
respectively, as in subtracting the overall EMM from each EMM. The default
multiplicity adjustment method is "fdr". This is a Bonferroni-based
method and is slightly conservative; see p.adjust.
wtcon.emmc generates weighted contrasts based on the function
contrMat function in the multcomp package,
using the provided type as documented there. If the user provides
wts, they have to conform to the length of levs; however,
if wts is not specified, contrast will fill-in what is
required, and usually this is safer (especially when by != NULL
which usually means that the weights are different in each by group).
identity.emmc simply returns the identity matrix (as a data frame),
minus any columns specified in exclude. It is potentially useful in
cases where a contrast function must be specified, but none is desired.