predict() Function for lmer Mixed Effects Models

Question

The problem:

I have read in other posts that predict is not available for mixed effects lmer {lme4} models in [R].

I tried exploring this subject with a toy dataset...

Background:

The dataset is adapted form this source, and available as...

require(gsheet)
data <- read.csv(text = 
     gsheet2text('https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QgtDcGJebyfW7TJsB8n6rAmsyAnlz1xkT3RuPFICTdk/edit?usp=sharing',
        format ='csv'))

These are the first rows and headers:

> head(data)
  Subject Auditorium Education Time  Emotion Caffeine Recall
1     Jim          A        HS    0 Negative       95 125.80
2     Jim          A        HS    0  Neutral       86 123.60
3     Jim          A        HS    0 Positive      180 204.00
4     Jim          A        HS    1 Negative      200  95.72
5     Jim          A        HS    1  Neutral       40  75.80
6     Jim          A        HS    1 Positive       30  84.56

We have some repeated observations (Time) of a continuous measurement, namely the Recall rate of some words, and several explanatory variables, including random effects (Auditorium where the test took place; Subject name); and fixed effects, such as Education, Emotion (the emotional connotation of the word to remember), or $\small \text{mgs.}$ of Caffeine ingested prior to the test.

The idea is that it's easy to remember for hyper-caffeinated wired subjects, but the ability decreases over time, perhaps due to tiredness. Words with negative connotation are more difficult to remember. Education has a predictable effect, and even the auditorium plays a role (perhaps one was more noisy, or less comfortable). Here're a couple of exploratory plots:

---

Differences in recall rate as a function of Emotional Tone, Auditorium and Education:

---

When fitting lines on the data cloud for the call:

fit1 <- lmer(Recall ~ (1|Subject) + Caffeine, data = data)

I get this plot:

library(ggplot2)
p <- ggplot(data, aes(x = Caffeine, y = Recall, colour = Subject)) +
  geom_point(size=3) +
  geom_line(aes(y = predict(fit1)),size=1) 
print(p)

while the following model:

fit2 <- lmer(Recall ~ (1|Subject/Time) + Caffeine, data = data)

incorporating Time and a parallel code gets a surprising plot:

p <- ggplot(data, aes(x = Caffeine, y = Recall, colour = Subject)) +
  geom_point(size=3) +
  geom_line(aes(y = predict(fit2)),size=1) 
print(p)

---

The question:

How does the predict function operate in this lmer model? Evidently it's taking into consideration the Time variable, resulting in a much tighter fit, and the zig-zagging that is trying to display this third dimension of Time portrayed in the first plot.

If I call predict(fit2) I get 132.45609 for the first entry, which corresponds to the first point. Here is the head of the dataset with the output of predict(fit2) attached as the last column:

> data$predict = predict(fit2)
> head(data)
  Subject Auditorium Education Time  Emotion Caffeine Recall   predict
1     Jim          A        HS    0 Negative       95 125.80 132.45609
2     Jim          A        HS    0  Neutral       86 123.60 130.55145
3     Jim          A        HS    0 Positive      180 204.00 150.44439
4     Jim          A        HS    1 Negative      200  95.72 112.37045
5     Jim          A        HS    1  Neutral       40  75.80  78.51012
6     Jim          A        HS    1 Positive       30  84.56  76.39385

The coefficients for fit2 are:

$`Time:Subject`
         (Intercept)  Caffeine
0:Jason     75.03040 0.2116271
0:Jim       94.96442 0.2116271
0:Ron       58.72037 0.2116271
0:Tina      70.81225 0.2116271
0:Victor    86.31101 0.2116271
1:Jason     59.85016 0.2116271
1:Jim       52.65793 0.2116271
1:Ron       57.48987 0.2116271
1:Tina      68.43393 0.2116271
1:Victor    79.18386 0.2116271
2:Jason     43.71483 0.2116271
2:Jim       42.08250 0.2116271
2:Ron       58.44521 0.2116271
2:Tina      44.73748 0.2116271
2:Victor    36.33979 0.2116271

$Subject
       (Intercept)  Caffeine
Jason     30.40435 0.2116271
Jim       79.30537 0.2116271
Ron       13.06175 0.2116271
Tina      54.12216 0.2116271
Victor   132.69770 0.2116271

My best bet was...

> coef(fit2)[[1]][2,1]
[1] 94.96442
> coef(fit2)[[2]][2,1]
[1] 79.30537
> coef(fit2)[[1]][2,2]
[1] 0.2116271
> data$Caffeine[1]
[1] 95
> coef(fit2)[[1]][2,1] + coef(fit2)[[2]][2,1] + coef(fit2)[[1]][2,2] * data$Caffeine[1]
[1] 194.3744

What is the formula to get instead to 132.45609?

---

EDIT for rapid access... The formula to calculate the predicted value (according to the accepted answer would be based on the ranef(fit2) output:

> ranef(fit2)
$`Time:Subject`
         (Intercept)
0:Jason    13.112130
0:Jim      33.046151
0:Ron      -3.197895
0:Tina      8.893985
0:Victor   24.392738
1:Jason    -2.068105
1:Jim      -9.260334
1:Ron      -4.428399
1:Tina      6.515667
1:Victor   17.265589
2:Jason   -18.203436
2:Jim     -19.835771
2:Ron      -3.473053
2:Tina    -17.180791
2:Victor  -25.578477

$Subject
       (Intercept)
Jason   -31.513915
Jim      17.387103
Ron     -48.856516
Tina     -7.796104
Victor   70.779432

... for the first entry point:

> summary(fit2)$coef[1]
[1] 61.91827             # Overall intercept for Fixed Effects 
> ranef(fit2)[[1]][2,]   
[1] 33.04615             # Time:Subject random intercept for Jim
> ranef(fit2)[[2]][2,]
[1] 17.3871              # Subject random intercept for Jim
> summary(fit2)$coef[2]
[1] 0.2116271            # Fixed effect slope
> data$Caffeine[1]
[1] 95                   # Value of caffeine

summary(fit2)$coef[1] + ranef(fit2)[[1]][2,] + ranef(fit2)[[2]][2,] + 
                    summary(fit2)$coef[2] * data$Caffeine[1]
[1] 132.4561

The code for this post is here.

Answer 1

It's easy to get confused by the presentation of coefficients when you call coef(fit2). Look at the summary of fit2:

> summary(fit2)
Linear mixed model fit by REML ['lmerMod']
Formula: Recall ~ (1 | Subject/Time) + Caffeine
   Data: data

REML criterion at convergence: 444.5

Scaled residuals: 
 Min       1Q   Median       3Q      Max 
-1.88657 -0.46382 -0.06054  0.31430  2.16244 

Random effects:
 Groups       Name        Variance Std.Dev.
 Time:Subject (Intercept)  558.4   23.63   
 Subject      (Intercept) 2458.0   49.58   
 Residual                  675.0   25.98   
Number of obs: 45, groups:  Time:Subject, 15; Subject, 5

Fixed effects:
Estimate Std. Error t value
(Intercept) 61.91827   25.04930   2.472
Caffeine     0.21163    0.07439   2.845

Correlation of Fixed Effects:
 (Intr)
Caffeine -0.365

There is an overall intercept of 61.92 for the model, with a caffeine coefficient of 0.212. So for caffeine = 95 you predict an average 82.06 recall.

Instead of using coef, use ranef to get the difference of each random-effect intercept from the mean intercept at the next higher level of nesting:

> ranef(fit2)
$`Time:Subject`
         (Intercept)
0:Jason    13.112130
0:Jim      33.046151
0:Ron      -3.197895
0:Tina      8.893985
0:Victor   24.392738
1:Jason    -2.068105
1:Jim      -9.260334
1:Ron      -4.428399
1:Tina      6.515667
1:Victor   17.265589
2:Jason   -18.203436
2:Jim     -19.835771
2:Ron      -3.473053
2:Tina    -17.180791
2:Victor  -25.578477

$Subject
       (Intercept)
Jason   -31.513915
Jim      17.387103
Ron     -48.856516
Tina     -7.796104
Victor   70.779432

The values for Jim at Time=0 will differ from that average value of 82.06 by the sum of both his Subject and his Time:Subject coefficients:

$$82.06+17.39+33.04=132.49$$

which I think is within rounding error of 132.46.

The intercept values returned by coef seem to represent the overall intercept plus the Subject or Time:Subject specific differences, so it's harder to work with those; if you tried to do the above calculation with the coef values you would be double-counting the overall intercept.