Publications by Shravan Vasishth
New course on bayesian data analysis for psycholinguistics
I decided to teach a basic course on bayesian data analysis with a focus on psycholinguistics. Here is the course website (below). How could this possibly be a bad idea!http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~vasishth/advanceddataanalysis.html Related To leave a comment for the author, please follow the link and comment on their blog: Shravan Vasishth...
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The most common linear mixed models in psycholinguistics, using JAGS and Stan
As part of my course in bayesian data analysis, I have put up some common linear mixed models that we fit in psycholinguistics. These are written in JAGS and Stan. Comments and suggestions for improvement are most welcome.Code: http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~vasishth/lmmexamplecode.txtData: http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~vasishth/da...
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lmer vs Stan for a somewhat involved dataset.
Here is a comparison of lmer vs Stan output on a mildly complicated dataset from a psychology expt. (Kliegl et al 2011). The data are here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pwuz1g7rtwy17p1/KWDYZ_test.rda.The data and paper available from: http://openscience.uni-leipzig.de/index.php/mr2I should say that datasets from psychology and psycholing...
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An adverse consequence of fitting "maximal" linear mixed models
Distribution of intercept-slope correlation estimates with 37 subjects, 15 itemsDistribution of intercept-slope correlation estimates with 50 subjects, 30 itemsShould one always fit a full variance covariance matrix (a “maximal” model) when one analyzes repeated measures data-sets using linear mixed models? Here, I present one reason why blin...
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Simulating scientists doing experiments
Following a discussion on Gelman’s blog, I was playing around with simulating scientists looking for significant effects. Suppose each of 1000 scientists run 200 experiments in their lifetime, and suppose that 20% of the experiments are such that the null is true. Assume a low power experiment (standard in psycholinguistics; eyetrac...
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Should we fit maximal linear mixed models?
Recently, Barr et al published a paper in the Journal of Memory and Language, arguing that we should fit maximal linear mixed models, i.e., fit models that have a full variance-covariance matrix specification for subject and for items. I suggest here that the recommendation should not be to fit maximal models, the recommendation shoul...
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A weird and unintended consequence of Barr et al’s Keep It Maximal paper
Barr et al’s well-intentioned paper is starting to lead to some seriously weird behavior in psycholinguistics! As a reviewer, I’m seeing submissions where people take the following approach:1. Try to fit a “maximal” linear mixed model. If you get a convergence failure (this happens a lot since we routinely run low power stud...
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Getting a statistics education: Review of the MSc in Statistics (Sheffield)
[This post was written between 2012 and 2015] Some background:I started using statistics for my research sometime in 1999 or 2000. I was a student at Ohio State, Linguistics, and I had just gotten interested in psycholinguistics. I knew almost nothing about statistics at that time. I did one Intro to Stats course in my department with Mike Broe (...
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Some reflections on teaching frequentist statistics at ESSLLI 2015
I spent the last two weeks teaching frequentist and Bayesian statistics at the European Summer School in Logic, Language, and Information (ESSLLI) in Barcelona, at the beautiful and centrally located Pompeu Fabra University. The course web page for the first week is here, and the web page for the second course is here. (NOTE: Uni Pots...
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My MSc thesis: A meta-analysis of relative clause processing in Mandarin Chinese using bias modelling
Here is my MSc thesis, which was submitted to the University of Sheffield in September 2015. The pdf is here.Title: A Meta-analysis of Relative Clause Processing in Mandarin Chinese using Bias Modelling AbstractThe reading difficulty associated with Chinese relative clauses presents an important empirical problem for psycholinguistic...
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