On verbal categories for the interpretation of Bayes factors

As Bayesian analysis is becoming more popular, adopters of Bayesian statistics have had to consider new issues that they did not before. What is makes “good” prior? How do I interpret a posterior? What Bayes factor is “big enough”? Although the theoretical arguments for the use of Bayesian statistics are very strong, new and unfamiliar ideas can cause uncertainty in new adopters. Compared to the cozy certainty of \(p<.05\), Bayesian statistics requires more care and attention. In theory, this is no problem at all. But as Yogi Berra said, "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."

In this post, I discuss the the use of verbal labels for magnitudes of Bayes factors. In short, I don't like them, and think they are unnecessary.

Multiple Comparisons with BayesFactor, Part 2 - order restrictions

In my previous post, I described how to do multiple comparisons using the BayesFactor package. Part 1 concentrated on testing equality constraints among effects: for instance, that the the effects of two factor levels are equal, while leaving the third free to be different. In this second part, I will describe how to test order restrictions on factor level effects. This post will be a little more involved than the previous one, because BayesFactor does not currently do order restrictions automatically.

Again, I will note that these methods are only meant to be used for pre-planned comparisons. They should not be used for post hoc comparisons.

Multiple Comparisons with BayesFactor, Part 1

One of the most frequently-asked questions about the BayesFactor package is how to do multiple comparisons; that is, given that some effect exists across factor levels or means, how can we test whether two specific effects are unequal. In the next two posts, I'll explain how this can be done in two cases: in Part 1, I'll cover tests for equality, and in Part 2 I'll cover tests for specific order-restrictions.

Before we start, I will note that these methods are only meant to be used for pre-planned comparisons. They should not be used for post hoc comparisons.