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just a quick question regarding main effects and interaction effects:

For example, in a LME model like

lme_model <- lmer(outcome ~ Group*Time + var1 + (1|Sub), data=datatable

In the analysis there would be main effects of group, time (and var1), correct? Group x Time (or Group:Time , does it matter how I write it btw?) would then be called an interaction effect, if I am not mistaken? Someone told me that main effects are without direction. Is that correct? I am pretty sure I am getting I direction shown in the output of summary(lme_model). The interaction effect also has a direction effect, hasn't it?

Maybe the other person used anova(lme_model) to get to that opinion, which instead of summary(lme_model) doesn't produce estimates and a direction for main and interaction effects?

Edit: with direction I meant positive or negative, e.g. there is a negative groupXtime interaction effect

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    $\begingroup$ I think it really depends on what you mean by direction here. Point estimates from regression coefficients usually give an idea of how a predictor decreases or increases a conditional mean value, which is your outcome variable. Interaction coefficients do the same thing really as far as I know. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 20, 2022 at 0:32

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I assume by "direction" you mean "sign" (positive or negative). Then yes, all coefficients — the main effects and the interaction — have a sign.

The sign of the main effect for a variable that interacts with other variables might not be particularly easy to interpret on its own. Same goes for the interaction.

Say the model is $\operatorname{E}\{Y\} = \beta_0 + \beta_1x_1 + \beta_2x_2 + \beta_3x_1x_2$. When $x_2$ changes by one unit, $\operatorname{E}\{Y\}$ changes by $\beta_2 + \beta_3x_1$. The expected change in the response depends on the coefficients $\beta_2$ and $\beta_3$ (and their signs) as well as on the (fixed) value of $x_1$.

There is an easier way to visualize and understand the effects of a predictor that works equally well in models with and without interactions: partial effect plots.

Here is how to create a partial effect plot in R using the ggeffects package.

library("ggeffects") set.seed(1234) n <- 100 # Generate data with an interaction between x1 (categorical) and x2 (continuous) data <- data.frame( x1 = sample(c("A", "B"), n, replace = TRUE), x2 = rnorm(n) ) data$y <- ifelse(data$x1 == "A", 1 + data$x2, 2 - data$x2 / 3) + rnorm(n) # Fit the model model <- lm(y ~ x1 * x2, data = data) # Make a partial effect plot for the continuous variable, x2, # at each level of the categorical variable, x1 plot( ggpredict(model, terms = c("x2", "x1")) ) #> Loading required namespace: ggplot2

Created on 2022-08-20 with reprex v2.0.2

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank for the answer; also ggpredict looks very neat! $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 20, 2022 at 20:50

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