
Technical Details: Difference between ggpredict(), ggemmeans() and ggaverage()
Daniel Lüdecke
2023-11-29
Source:vignettes/technical_differencepredictemmeans.Rmd
technical_differencepredictemmeans.Rmd
ggpredict()
and ggemmeans()
compute
predicted values for all possible levels or values from a model’s
predictor. Basically, ggpredict()
wraps the
predict()
-method for the related model, while
ggemmeans()
wraps the emmeans()
-method from
the emmeans-package. Both ggpredict()
and
ggemmeans()
do some data-preparation to bring the data in
shape for the newdata
-argument (predict()
)
resp. the at
-argument (emmeans()
). It is
recommended to read the general
introduction first, if you haven’t done this yet.
Thus, effects returned by ggpredict()
conditional
effects (i.e. these are conditioned on certain (reference) levels
of factors), while ggemmeans()
returns marginal
means, since the effects are “marginalized” (or “averaged”) over
the levels of factors. However, these differences only
apply to non-focal terms, i.e. remaining variables that
are not specified in the terms
argument.
That means:
For models without categorical predictors, the results from
ggpredict()
andggemmeans()
are identical (except some slight differences in the associated confidence intervals, which are, however, negligible).When all categorical predictors are specified in
terms
and further (non-focal) terms are only numeric, results are also identical (as bothggpredict()
andggemmeans()
use the mean value by default to hold non-focal numeric variables constant).
library(magrittr)
library(ggeffects)
data(efc, package = "ggeffects")
fit <- lm(barthtot ~ c12hour + neg_c_7, data = efc)
ggpredict(fit, terms = "c12hour")
#> # Predicted values of Total score BARTHEL INDEX
#>
#> c12hour | Predicted | 95% CI
#> ------------------------------------
#> 0 | 75.07 | [72.96, 77.19]
#> 20 | 70.15 | [68.40, 71.91]
#> 45 | 64.01 | [62.40, 65.61]
#> 65 | 59.09 | [57.32, 60.86]
#> 85 | 54.17 | [52.04, 56.31]
#> 105 | 49.25 | [46.64, 51.87]
#> 125 | 44.34 | [41.18, 47.49]
#> 170 | 33.27 | [28.78, 37.76]
#>
#> Adjusted for:
#> * neg_c_7 = 11.83
ggemmeans(fit, terms = "c12hour")
#> # Predicted values of Total score BARTHEL INDEX
#>
#> c12hour | Predicted | 95% CI
#> ------------------------------------
#> 0 | 75.07 | [72.96, 77.19]
#> 20 | 70.15 | [68.40, 71.91]
#> 45 | 64.01 | [62.40, 65.61]
#> 65 | 59.09 | [57.32, 60.86]
#> 85 | 54.17 | [52.04, 56.31]
#> 105 | 49.25 | [46.64, 51.87]
#> 125 | 44.34 | [41.18, 47.49]
#> 170 | 33.27 | [28.78, 37.76]
#>
#> Adjusted for:
#> * neg_c_7 = 11.83
As can be seen, the continuous predictor neg_c_7
is held
constant at its mean value, 11.83. For categorical predictors,
ggpredict()
and ggemmeans()
behave
differently. While ggpredict()
uses the reference level of
each categorical predictor to hold it constant, ggemmeans()
- like ggeffect()
- averages over the proportions of the
categories of factors.
library(datawizard)
data(efc, package = "ggeffects")
efc$e42dep <- to_factor(efc$e42dep)
fit <- lm(barthtot ~ c12hour + neg_c_7 + e42dep, data = efc)
ggpredict(fit, terms = "c12hour")
#> # Predicted values of Total score BARTHEL INDEX
#>
#> c12hour | Predicted | 95% CI
#> ------------------------------------
#> 0 | 92.74 | [88.48, 97.01]
#> 20 | 91.32 | [87.06, 95.57]
#> 45 | 89.53 | [85.20, 93.87]
#> 65 | 88.10 | [83.64, 92.57]
#> 85 | 86.68 | [82.03, 91.32]
#> 105 | 85.25 | [80.37, 90.13]
#> 125 | 83.82 | [78.67, 88.98]
#> 170 | 80.61 | [74.71, 86.51]
#>
#> Adjusted for:
#> * neg_c_7 = 11.83
#> * e42dep = independent
ggemmeans(fit, terms = "c12hour")
#> # Predicted values of Total score BARTHEL INDEX
#>
#> c12hour | Predicted | 95% CI
#> ------------------------------------
#> 0 | 73.51 | [71.85, 75.18]
#> 20 | 72.09 | [70.65, 73.53]
#> 45 | 70.30 | [68.89, 71.71]
#> 65 | 68.87 | [67.29, 70.46]
#> 85 | 67.45 | [65.55, 69.34]
#> 105 | 66.02 | [63.74, 68.30]
#> 125 | 64.59 | [61.88, 67.31]
#> 170 | 61.38 | [57.61, 65.15]
#>
#> Adjusted for:
#> * neg_c_7 = 11.83
In this case, one would obtain the same results for
ggpredict()
and ggemmeans()
again, if
condition
is used to define specific levels at which
variables, in our case the factor e42dep
, should be held
constant.
ggpredict(fit, terms = "c12hour")
#> # Predicted values of Total score BARTHEL INDEX
#>
#> c12hour | Predicted | 95% CI
#> ------------------------------------
#> 0 | 92.74 | [88.48, 97.01]
#> 20 | 91.32 | [87.06, 95.57]
#> 45 | 89.53 | [85.20, 93.87]
#> 65 | 88.10 | [83.64, 92.57]
#> 85 | 86.68 | [82.03, 91.32]
#> 105 | 85.25 | [80.37, 90.13]
#> 125 | 83.82 | [78.67, 88.98]
#> 170 | 80.61 | [74.71, 86.51]
#>
#> Adjusted for:
#> * neg_c_7 = 11.83
#> * e42dep = independent
ggemmeans(fit, terms = "c12hour", condition = c(e42dep = "independent"))
#> # Predicted values of Total score BARTHEL INDEX
#>
#> c12hour | Predicted | 95% CI
#> ------------------------------------
#> 0 | 92.74 | [88.48, 97.01]
#> 20 | 91.32 | [87.06, 95.57]
#> 45 | 89.53 | [85.20, 93.87]
#> 65 | 88.10 | [83.64, 92.57]
#> 85 | 86.68 | [82.03, 91.32]
#> 105 | 85.25 | [80.37, 90.13]
#> 125 | 83.82 | [78.67, 88.98]
#> 170 | 80.61 | [74.71, 86.51]
#>
#> Adjusted for:
#> * neg_c_7 = 11.83
Creating plots is as simple as described in the vignette Plotting Marginal Effects.
Another option is to use ggaverage()
to compute average
prediction. This function is a wrapper for the
avg_predictions()
-method from the
marginaleffects-package. The major difference to
ggemmeans()
is that estimated marginal means, as computed
by ggemmeans()
, are a special case of predictions, made on
a perfectly balanced grid of categorical predictors, with numeric
predictors held at their means, and marginalized with respect to some
focal variables. ggaverage()
, in turn, calculates predicted
values for each observation in the data multiple times, each time fixing
all values or levels of the focal terms to and then takes the average of
these predicted values (aggregated/grouped by the focal terms) - or in
other words: ggaverage()
duplicates the whole dataset once
for every unique value of the focal terms, makes predictions for each
observation of the new dataset and take the average of all predictions
(grouped by focal terms).
ggaverage(fit, terms = "c12hour")
#> # Average predicted values of Total score BARTHEL INDEX
#>
#> c12hour | Predicted | 95% CI
#> ------------------------------------
#> 0 | 67.73 | [66.15, 69.31]
#> 20 | 66.30 | [65.03, 67.57]
#> 45 | 64.52 | [63.38, 65.66]
#> 65 | 63.09 | [61.81, 64.37]
#> 85 | 61.66 | [60.07, 63.25]
#> 105 | 60.23 | [58.24, 62.23]
#> 125 | 58.81 | [56.37, 61.25]
#> 170 | 55.59 | [52.08, 59.11]
To explain how ggaverage()
works, let’s look at
following example. The confidence intervals for the simple means differ
from those of ggaverage()
, however, the predicted and mean
values are identical.
data(iris)
set.seed(123)
# create an unequal distributed factor, used as focal term
iris$x <- as.factor(sample(1:4, nrow(iris), replace = TRUE, prob = c(0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4)))
m <- lm(Sepal.Width ~ Species + x, data = iris)
# average predicted values
ggaverage(m, "x")
#> # Average predicted values of Sepal.Width
#>
#> x | Predicted | 95% CI
#> ----------------------------
#> 1 | 3.12 | [2.94, 3.31]
#> 2 | 3.11 | [2.99, 3.23]
#> 3 | 2.97 | [2.87, 3.06]
#> 4 | 3.09 | [3.00, 3.17]
# replicate the dataset for each level of "x", i.e. 4 times
d <- do.call(rbind, replicate(4, iris, simplify = FALSE))
# for each data set, we set our focal term "x" to one of the four unique values
d$x <- as.factor(rep(1:4, each = 150))
# we calculate predicted values for each "dataset", i.e. we predict our outcome
# for observations, for all levels of "x"
d$predicted <- predict(m, newdata = d)
# now we compute the average predicted values for each level of "x"
datawizard::means_by_group(d, "predicted", "x")
#> # Mean of predicted by x
#>
#> Category | Mean | N | SD | 95% CI | p
#> ----------------------------------------------------
#> 1 | 3.12 | 150 | 0.28 | [3.08, 3.17] | 0.017
#> 2 | 3.11 | 150 | 0.28 | [3.07, 3.16] | 0.059
#> 3 | 2.97 | 150 | 0.28 | [2.92, 3.01] | < .001
#> 4 | 3.09 | 150 | 0.28 | [3.04, 3.13] | 0.468
#> Total | 3.07 | 600 | 0.28 | |
#>
#> Anova: R2=0.048; adj.R2=0.044; F=10.094; p<.001
But when should I use ggemmeans()
,
ggpredict()
or ggaverage()
?
When you are interested in the strength of association, it usually
doesn’t matter. as you can see in the plots below. The slope of our
focal term, c12hour
, is the same for all four plots:
library(see)
p1 <- plot(ggpredict(fit, terms = "c12hour"), show_ci = FALSE, show_title = FALSE, show_x_title = FALSE, show_y_title = FALSE)
p2 <- plot(ggemmeans(fit, terms = "c12hour"), show_ci = FALSE, show_title = FALSE, show_x_title = FALSE, show_y_title = FALSE)
p3 <- plot(ggemmeans(fit, terms = "c12hour", condition = c(e42dep = "independent")), show_ci = FALSE, show_title = FALSE, show_x_title = FALSE, show_y_title = FALSE)
p4 <- plot(ggaverage(fit, terms = "c12hour"), show_ci = FALSE, show_title = FALSE, show_x_title = FALSE, show_y_title = FALSE)
plots(p1, p2, p3, p4, n_rows = 2)
However, the predicted outcome varies. This gives an impression when
ggemmeans()
, i.e. marginal effects, matter: when
you want to predict your outcome, marginalized over the different levels
of factors, i.e. “generalized” to the population (of your sample) on a
balanced grid of focal terms. ggpredict()
would
give a predicted outcome for a subgroup (or: specific group) of
your sample, i.e. conditioned on specific levels of factors. Hence, the
predicted outcome from ggpredict()
does not necessarily
generalize to the “population” (always keeping in mind that we assume
having a “representative sample” of a “population” as data in our
model). Finally, ggaverage()
gives you predictions averaged
across your sample and aggregated by the focal terms.
What is the most apparent difference from
ggaverage()
to the other functions in
ggeffects?
The most apparent difference from ggaverage()
compared
to the other methods occurs when you have categorical co-variates
(non-focal terms) with unequally distributed levels.
ggemmeans()
will “average” over the levels of non-focal
factors, while ggaverage()
will average over the
observations in your sample.
Let’s show this with a very simple example:
data(iris)
set.seed(123)
# create an unequal distributed factor, used as non-focal term
iris$x <- as.factor(sample(1:4, nrow(iris), replace = TRUE, prob = c(0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4)))
m <- lm(Sepal.Width ~ Species + x, data = iris)
# predicted values, conditioned on x = 1
ggpredict(m, "Species")
#> # Predicted values of Sepal.Width
#>
#> Species | Predicted | 95% CI
#> -------------------------------------
#> setosa | 3.50 | [3.30, 3.69]
#> versicolor | 2.84 | [2.63, 3.04]
#> virginica | 3.04 | [2.85, 3.23]
#>
#> Adjusted for:
#> * x = 1
# predicted values, conditioned on weighted average of x
ggemmeans(m, "Species")
#> # Predicted values of Sepal.Width
#>
#> Species | Predicted | 95% CI
#> -------------------------------------
#> setosa | 3.45 | [3.35, 3.54]
#> versicolor | 2.78 | [2.68, 2.89]
#> virginica | 2.99 | [2.89, 3.09]
# average predicted values, averaged over the sample and aggregated by "Species"
ggaverage(m, "Species")
#> # Average predicted values of Sepal.Width
#>
#> Species | Predicted | 95% CI
#> -------------------------------------
#> setosa | 3.43 | [3.34, 3.52]
#> versicolor | 2.77 | [2.67, 2.86]
#> virginica | 2.97 | [2.88, 3.07]
There is no rule of thumb which approach is better; it depends on the characteristics of the sample and the population to which should be generalized. Consulting the marginaleffects-website might help to decide which approach is more appropriate.
Showing the difference between ggemmeans()
and
ggaverage()
A code example, where we compute the average predicted values the estimated marginal means manually, shows the differences between these two ways of averaging in detail.
data(iris)
set.seed(123)
iris$x <- as.factor(sample(1:4, nrow(iris), replace = TRUE, prob = c(0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4)))
m <- lm(Sepal.Width ~ Species + x, data = iris)
# average predicted values
ggaverage(m, "Species")
#> # Average predicted values of Sepal.Width
#>
#> Species | Predicted | 95% CI
#> -------------------------------------
#> setosa | 3.43 | [3.34, 3.52]
#> versicolor | 2.77 | [2.67, 2.86]
#> virginica | 2.97 | [2.88, 3.07]
# replicate the dataset for each level of "Species", i.e. 3 times
d <- do.call(rbind, replicate(3, iris, simplify = FALSE))
# for each data set, we set our focal term to one of the three levels
d$Species <- as.factor(rep(levels(iris$Species), each = 150))
# we calculate predicted values for each "dataset", i.e. we predict our outcome
# for observations, for all levels of "Species"
d$predicted <- predict(m, newdata = d)
# now we compute the average predicted values by levels of "Species"
datawizard::means_by_group(d, "predicted", "Species")
#> # Mean of predicted by Species
#>
#> Category | Mean | N | SD | 95% CI | p
#> ------------------------------------------------------
#> setosa | 3.43 | 150 | 0.06 | [3.42, 3.44] | < .001
#> versicolor | 2.77 | 150 | 0.06 | [2.76, 2.78] | < .001
#> virginica | 2.97 | 150 | 0.06 | [2.96, 2.98] | < .001
#> Total | 3.06 | 450 | 0.28 | |
#>
#> Anova: R2=0.951; adj.R2=0.951; F=4320.998; p<.001
# estimated marginal means, in turn, differ from the above, because they are
# averaged across balanced reference grids for all focal terms, thereby non-focal
# are hold constant at a "weighted average".
# estimated marginal means, from `ggemmeans()`
ggemmeans(m, "Species")
#> # Predicted values of Sepal.Width
#>
#> Species | Predicted | 95% CI
#> -------------------------------------
#> setosa | 3.45 | [3.35, 3.54]
#> versicolor | 2.78 | [2.68, 2.89]
#> virginica | 2.99 | [2.89, 3.09]
d <- rbind(
data_grid(m, "Species", condition = c(x = "1")),
data_grid(m, "Species", condition = c(x = "2")),
data_grid(m, "Species", condition = c(x = "3")),
data_grid(m, "Species", condition = c(x = "4"))
)
d$predicted <- predict(m, newdata = d)
# means calculated manually
datawizard::means_by_group(d, "predicted", "Species")
#> # Mean of predicted by Species
#>
#> Category | Mean | N | SD | 95% CI | p
#> -----------------------------------------------------
#> setosa | 3.45 | 4 | 0.07 | [3.36, 3.53] | < .001
#> versicolor | 2.78 | 4 | 0.07 | [2.70, 2.87] | < .001
#> virginica | 2.99 | 4 | 0.07 | [2.91, 3.07] | 0.019
#> Total | 3.07 | 12 | 0.30 | |
#>
#> Anova: R2=0.952; adj.R2=0.941; F=88.566; p<.001
When should I use ggpredict()
,
ggemmeans()
or ggaverage()
?
The strength of the association should not be affected by the way of averaging. You can see this when comparing the differences between the predicted values, which are the same. If you’re interested in differences between specific levels (or values) of your predictors, it shouldn’t matter which function you use.
What is different is the predicted outcome, and therefore
the conclusions you would draw from the results.
ggpredict()
predicts your outcome for certain
characteristics of your sample (for “subgroups”, if you like).
ggaverage()
and ggemmeans()
predict your
outcome for an “average observation” of your sample, with slightly
different approaches of averaging.
# check that the difference between the predicted value, average predicted values
# estimated marginal means is the same
out1 <- ggaverage(m, "Species")
out2 <- ggemmeans(m, "Species")
out3 <- ggpredict(m, "Species")
all.equal(diff(out1$predicted), diff(out2$predicted))
#> [1] TRUE
all.equal(diff(out1$predicted), diff(out3$predicted))
#> [1] TRUE
Some models are not yet supported by the emmeans
package, thus, for certain models, only ggpredict()
works,
not ggemmeans()
nor ggeffect()
.
ggaverage()
should support the same (or more) models as
ggpredict()
, but averages predictions from the sample, and
thus may not be the quantity of interest. Sometimes, robust
variance-covariance estimation is required for confidence intervals of
predictions. In such cases, you have to rely on ggpredict()
or ggaverage()
. If you have no categorical predictors as
non-focal terms (i.e. no factor needs to be held constant), then - as
shown above - ggpredict()
and ggemmeans()
yield the same results.