# Using R to Compute Effect Size Confidence Intervals

This is a demonstration of using R in the context of hypothesis testing by means of Effect Size Confidence Intervals. In other words, we’ll calculate confidence intervals based on the distribution of a test statistic under the assumption that $H_0$ is false, the noncentral distribution of a test statistic.

1. Discrete distributions: Count data and proportions
• Discrete CI ≠ Approximately Continuous CI
• Noncentral CIs around the Odds Ratio of Fisher’s Exact Test
• Example: Time, Money, and Morality
2. Continuous distributions: Standardised sample means
• Standardised, but on which measure of dispersion?
• Example: Neural reactivation links unconscious thought to decision-making performance
3. Learn From Reproducible Open Data

**Notes:**
New to R? Here are some pointers to get you started

# Source a file from Github to get function in.IT(), which will load and, if necessary, install packages passed as a list.
require(devtools)
source_url('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FredHasselman/toolboxR/master/C-3PR.R')

in.IT(c("MBESS","metafor","plyr"))

# Discrete distributions: Count data

### Discrete CI ≠ Approximately Continuous CI

Many studies in the social sciences compare variables across the levels of a design factor that are discrete in nature. These discrete variables often represent countable units: Participants, behaviours, correctly answered items, etc. At the aggregate level a proportion or percentage is often the object of analysis. It is common practice to disregard the discrete nature of the variable under investigation and assign probabilities to observed events using a continuous distribution function given large enough sample sizes. For example, the test for equality of sample proportions uses the standardised normal distribution (Z-score). In R this test can be conducted using the function prop.test, by default, it performs Yates’ continuity correction. Depending on the situation such corrections can be either too lenient or too strict, moreover, calculating a symmetrical, continuous CI around a discrete variable is almost always inaccurate.

Let’s review some properties of discrete probability distributions: A distribution function that assigns a probability to the value taken on by a random variable due to the occurrence of a discrete random event is called a Probability Mass Function. They come in several flavours, the binomial distribution function assigns probabilities to events drawn from a finite population with replacement. The hypergeometric distribution function assigns probabilities to events drawn without replacing them, and the poisson distribution describes independent event probabilities based on an expected value of ‘successes’ denoted as $\lambda$.

These probability mass functions and their cumulative distribution function are shown in the figure below, the value with highest mass is 3 in all cases (the code to generate these figures is available in the .Rmarkdown file that generated this page).

It is evident from the figures above that for small sample sizes the CI based on a discrete distribution is not symmetrical: These distributions are zero inflated and depending on the context, can have fat tails when large samples are concerned.

Another reason to look for a more accurate CI around a discrete ES is a less than ideal analysis strategy that is often used when there are more than 2 factor levels in the design. One often calculates a $\chi^2$ statistic for the large design table and subsequently interprets $\chi^2$ tests on 2X2 partitions of the full design as level or group comparisons, like in a linear model. In my opinion this is an incorrect strategy: A $\chi^2$ test is a goodness-of-fit test and should not be used to test hypotheses about the effects of a linear predictor on a dependent variable. One should use a generalised linear model with a poisson link (poisson regression, log-linear analysis), or binomial link (logistic, probit regression) function to answer such questions.

What options are available if one does not want to embark on a generalised mixed model fitting spree?

## Noncentral CIs around the Odds Ratio of Fisher’s Exact Test

The solution is in fact quite simple when you are using R. No extra packages are required, because the fisher.test() function available in the core stats package will give you exactly the effect size you need: An exact Odds Ratio (OR) with CIs based on the noncentral hypergeomtric distribution for 2x2 tables. The function performs Fisher’s exact test, which for 2x2 tables amounts to evaluating $H_0: OR = 1$. If the Odds Ratio is 1, the cell counts are conditionally independent of row and column variables and one would infer: “There is no effect”.

You’ve probably read somewhere that Fisher’s Exact Test can take a long time to compute when the table is very large. That is correct, but when examples of large datasets with discrete variables in recent experimental studies are considered, I would not worry too much about the computation time. Moreover, R only gives the noncentral CIs for 2x2 tables, therefore this specific strategy can only be applied in the following common analysis context:

1. When dealing with tables larger than 2x2, check dependence of row and column variables using whatever test is convenient to do so.
2. When it is appropriate to analyse whether variation in cell counts depends on the levels a row or column factor, use Fisher’s exact test on the appropriate 2x2 sub-tables to get an exact Odds Ratio (OR).
3. Adjust the confidence level of the of the confidence interval around the OR estimate to take into account the number of statistical tests that were conducted on a partition of the full table: $CL = \frac{(1-\alpha)}{n_{comparisons}}$

Note: The $OR$ is usually expressed as $\log(OR)$

## Example: Time, Money, and Morality

This example is taken from: A Post-Publication Peer-Review (3PR) of Time, Money, and Morality, based on: Gino et al., 2013

This study examines unethical behaviour in participants as a function of induced states of self-interest or self-reflection. One of the dependent variables is the observation of cheating behaviour in participants, in order to receive a higher financial reward for completing the experiment. The two states are induced by subconscious priming of the concept of Money and Time respectively. In addition to subconscious priming, 2 of the 4 studies also used inductions of self-reflection by means of framing the task as a personality vs. intelligence assessment, or by placing a mirror in the experimentation room.

Setup the data

The R code below creates 4 tables based on the published results of the 4 experiments (however, see link to HIBAR above for details). The columns are Cheating=YES and Cheating=NO, and rows are the conditions in each experiment.
After each table is assigned cell counts (and row and column names), the variable name is called. Normal R behaviour is to display the contents of the variable.

# Experiment 1 - Cheating(YES,NO) X Prime(Money,Time,No Prime):
table.1           <- as.table(cbind(c(28,14,22),c(4,19,11)))
dimnames(table.1) <- list(Test=c("Money","Time","Control"), Cheating=c("CheatYES","CheatNO"))
table.1
>          Cheating
> Test      CheatYES CheatNO
>   Money         28       4
>   Time          14      19
>   Control       22      11

Setup the analysis

The statistical hypotheses concern comparisons of individual conditions, in ESCI terms, one needs an effect size with confidence interval for multiple 2x2 partitions of the full design table. In experiment 1 & 4 the number of 2x2 sub-tables that are possible is 3 and in experiment 2 & 3 there are 4 such partitions of the full table. In order to take into account that we are questioning a random sample more than once, a correction of the $\alpha$ level is appropriate and this implies a CI of 0.9833333 for experiment 1.

The 2x2 partitions are easy to create in R. For instance, to compare row 1 and 3 of table.1 created above one can us the following:

# Subset a table by calling specific row numbers: [c(1,3),1:2]
# Omitting column IDs [c(1,3),] will return all columns
table.1[c(1,3),]
>          Cheating
> Test      CheatYES CheatNO
>   Money         28       4
>   Control       22      11

Note: It often pays off to take the time to create sensible row and column labels; it is immediately clear which comparison is up for analysis.

The function fisher.test() can be called using this syntax and we need just one extra argument which is the desired confidence level. The code below clearly contains repetitions, the test is conducted 14 times! Experienced R programmers will shake their head and maybe even shed a tear, but the purpose here is to give an idea of what it is we are calculating and how those results are converted into a plot.

# Create confidence levels adjusted for comparisons
CL <- (1-.05/3)

# Perform Fisher's Exact Test on the appropriate 2x2 table
c1.1 <- fisher.test(table.1[c(1,2),],conf.level=CL)
c1.2 <- fisher.test(table.1[c(1,3),],conf.level=CL)
c1.3 <- fisher.test(table.1[c(2,3),],conf.level=CL)

The output of the fisher.test() function is a list with different kinds of values, the OR estimates, the CIs and the exact p-values. The code below creates a data frame called ORcomp, it will be used to plot the results.

Setup the plot

# Create a data frame
ORcomp <- data.frame(cbind(comparison=1:3, log(rbind(c1.1$estimate,c1.2$estimate,c1.3$estimate)), log(rbind(c1.1$conf.int,c1.2$conf.int,c1.3$conf.int)), round(rbind(c1.1$p.value,c1.2$p.value,c1.3$p.value),digits=4))) # Some columns do not have a name yet... names(ORcomp)[3] <- "lo" names(ORcomp)[4] <- "hi" names(ORcomp)[5] <- "p" # Create a factor with labels to indicate which comparison we are dealing with ORcomp$comparison <- factor(ORcomp$comparison,labels=c("EXP1: Money-Time","EXP1: Money-Control","EXP1: Time-Control")) # Show the data frame ORcomp > comparison odds.ratio lo hi p > 1 EXP1: Money-Time 2.212450 0.6510981 4.1467802 0.0002 > 2 EXP1: Money-Control 1.233574 -0.3954537 3.1832615 0.0759 > 3 EXP1: Time-Control -0.982712 -2.3549566 0.3207653 0.0828 A forest (the cure to publication bias?) All that is left is to create a plot of the results. The function forest() from the package metafor is used to create a so called forest plot, the Bonferroni adjusted p-values of the exact test will be added to the plot. # Bonferroni adjustment of the exact p-value adj <- c(rep(3,3))*ORcomp$p
adj[adj>1] <- 1

# Plot the results stored in data frame ORcomp
forest(x=ORcomp$odds.ratio,ci.lb=ORcomp$lo, ci.ub=ORcomp$hi, slab=ORcomp$comparison, ilab=adj, ilab.xpos=5, alim=c(-3.5,4.5), main="Forest Plot", xlim=c(-7,9), xlab="Exact log Odds Ratio", efac=1, cex=.9, mgp=c(1,1,0))

# Add some text
text(7.5,(nrow(ORcomp)+1.5),"log OR [CI.9833]")
text(-4.4,(nrow(ORcomp)+1.5),"Contrasts comparing Cheating frequency")
text(5,(nrow(ORcomp)+1.5),"Adjusted p")

Only the first comparison does not include 0. In the original article, the number of significant contrasts reported in 14 comparisons of occurrence of cheating behaviour conducted in 4 samples, was 9. This was based on a continuous test of sample proportions, without correcting for multiple comparisons. Both in R and in SPSS (for 2x2 tables), this is a deliberate choice, because the default behaviour is to apply Yates’ correction. If the continuous test is continuity corrected and a Bonferroni adjustment is applied, 2 significant results remain in the entire article. The ESCI hypothesis test conducted for all 4 experiments gives the same result: Just 2 intervals remain that do not include log(1)=0.

# Continuous distributions: Standardised sample means

## Standardised, but on which measure of dispersion?

When continuous variables are compared across different independent samples, the effect size of interest is often the standardised mean difference, also known as $\text{Cohen's d} = \frac{\bar{X_1}-\bar{X_2}}{s}$. One source of confusion that can arise when comparing this effect size between studies, is that different dispersion measures may be used to standardise the mean difference. In the equation, $s$ can mean at least two things: A reference sample’s standard deviation (e.g. a control group), or a pooled standard deviation.

It is of course important to know which dispersion measure was used to calculate Cohen’s d in order to build a CI around it. The R package MBESS contains separate functions to deal with each situation:

1. ci.sm() Confidence interval for the standardised mean: $\frac{\bar{X}-\mu}{SD_X}$
2. ci.smd() Confidence interval for the standardised mean difference: $\frac{\bar{X_1} - \bar{X_2}}{SD_{pooled}}$
3. ci.smd.c() Confidence interval for the control standardised mean difference: $\frac{\bar{X_C}-\bar{X_E}}{SD_C}$

Most MBESS functions allow different sets of input arguments to calculate the CIs:

1. Based on sample descriptives:
• ci.sm(Mean = , SD = , N = ), or: ci.sm(sm = , N = )
• ci.smd(smd = , n.1 = , n.2 = )
• ci.smd.c(smd.c = , n.C = , n.E = )
2. Based on the estimated non-centrality parameter (value of the test statistic, most often Student’s t assuming homogeneity of variance):
• ci.sm(ncp = , N = )
• ci.smd(ncp = , n.1 = , n.2 = )
• ci.smd.c(ncp = , n.C = , n.E = )

The confidence interval coverage ($1 - \alpha$) is .95 by default, this can be adjusted:

1. Symmetrically, e.g., ci.sm(sm = 2.1, N = 15, conf.level = .99)
2. Asymmetrically, separate $\alpha$ for lower and upper bound of the CI, e.g., ci.smd(ncp = 3.3, n.1 = 20, n.2 = 19, alpha.lower = 0, alpha.upper = .05)

# Learn From Reproducible Open Data

Yes, much more to learn about R, about ESCI, and meta-analysis!

Example: The ManyLabs project

A good place to continue from here on is to have a look at the R scripts used in the ManyLabs project.
There are three R scripts available from the OSF ManyLabs project pages that will also show you how to read from and write to a spreadsheet and how to save graphics device output to a pdf file:

1.Manylabs_OriginalStudiesESCI.R - ESCI for the original studies (correlations, $\chi^2$, Cohen’s d).
2.Manylabs_ReplicationStudiesESCI.R - ESCI for the replication data (correlations, $\chi^2$, Cohen’s d).
3.ManyLabs_Heterogeneity.R - Meta-analysis (forest plot, funnel plot, influence plot, radial plot, heterogeneity measures).

Good luck!

Fred Hasselman

# New to R?

You have probably heard many people say they should invest more time and effort to learn to use the R software environment for statistical computing… and they were right. However, what they probably meant to say is: “I tried it, but it’s so damned complicated, I gave up”… and they were right. That is, they were right to note that this is not a point and click tool designed to accommodate any user. It was built for the niche market of scientists who use statistics, but in that segment it’s actually the most useful tool I have encountered so far. Now that your struggles with getting a grip on R are fully acknowledged in advance, let’s try to avoid the ‘giving up’ from happening. Try to follow these steps to get started:

1. Get R and add some user comfort: Install the latest R software and install a user interface like RStudioIt’s all free! An R interface will make some things easier, e.g., searching and installing packages from repositories. RStudio will also add functionality, like git/svn version control, project management and more, like the tools to create html pages like this one (knitr and Rmarkdown). Another source of user comfort are the packages. R comes with some basic packages installed, but you’ll soon need to fit generalised linear mixture models, or visualise social networks using graph theory and that means you’ll be searching for packages that allow you to do such things. A good place to start package hunting are the CRAN task view pages.

2. Learn by running example code: Copy the commands in the code blocks you find on this page, or any other tutorial or help files (e.g., Rob Kabacoff’s Quick R). Paste them into an .R script file in the script (or, source) editor. In RStudio You can run code by pressing cmd + enter when the cursor is on a single single line, or you can run multiple lines at once by selecting them first. If you get stuck remember that there are expert R users who probably have answered your question already when it was posted on a forum. Search for example through the Stackoverflow site for questions tagged with R)

3. Examine what happens… when you tell R to make something happen: R stores variables (anything from numeric data to functions) in an Environment. There are in fact many different environments, but we’ll focus on the main workspace for the current R session. If you run the command x <- 1+1, a variable x will appear in the Environment with the value 2 assigned to it. Examining what happens in the Environment is not the same as examining the output of a statistical analysis. Output in R will appear in the Console window. Note that in a basic set-up each new R session starts with an empty Environment. If you need data in another session, you can save the entire Environment, or just some selected variables, to a file (.RData).

4. Learn about the properties of R objects: Think of objects as containers designed for specific content. One way to characterize the different objects in R is by how picky they are about the content you can assign it. There are objects that hold character and numeric type data, a matrix for numeric data organised in rows and columns, a data.frame is a matrix that allows different data types in columns, and least picky of all is the list object. It can carry any other object, you can have a list of which item 1 is an entire data.frame and item 2 is just a character vector of the letter R. The most difficult thing to master is how to efficiently work with these objects, how to assign values and query contents.

5. Avoid repeating yourself: The R language has some amazing properties that allow execution of many repetitive algorithmic operations using just a few lines of code at speeds up to warp 10. Naturally, you’ll need to be at least half Vulcan to master these features properly and I catch myself copying code when I shouldn’t on a daily basis. The first thing you will struggle with are the apply functions. These functions pass the contents of a list object to a function. Suppose we need to calculate the means of column variables in 40 different SPSS .sav files stored in the folder DAT. With the foreign package loaded we can execute the following commands:
data <- lapply(dir("/DAT/",pattern=".sav\$"),read.spss)
out <- sapply(data,colMeans)
The first command applies read.spss to all files with a .sav extension found in the folder /DAT. It creates a dataframe for each file which are all stored as elements of the list data. The second line applies the function colMeans to each element of data and puts the combined results in a matrix with dataset ID as columns (1-40), dataset variables as rows and the calculated column means as cells. This is just the beginning of the R magic, wait ’till you learn how to write functions that can create functions.

# References

• Creswell, J. D., Bursley, J. K., & Satpute, A. B. (2013). Neural reactivation links unconscious thought to decision-making performance. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8(8), 863–869. doi:10.1093/scan/nst004
• Dijksterhuis, A. (2013). First neural evidence for the unconscious thought process. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8(8), 845–846. doi:10.1093/scan/nst036
• Gino, F., & Mogilner, C. (online, 2013). Time, Money, and Morality. Psychological Science. doi: 10.1177/0956797613506438
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