RStanTVA is an R package containing the StanTVA library and numerous convenience functions for generating, compiling, fitting, and analyzing (Stan)TVA models.
You can install the development version of RStanTVA from GitHub with:
remotes::install_github("mmrabe/RStanTVA")
library(RStanTVA)
library(tidyverse)
The functions in this package use a relatively simplistic data format.
For an experiment with list
or tibble
with the following
columns/elements:
-
S
: An$n \times m$ matrix with valuesTRUE
or1
wherever a stimulus was displayed, otherwiseFALSE
or0
. If stimuli were displayed in all$m$ display locations in all$n$ trials, this would simply bematrix(TRUE,n,m)
. -
R
: An$n \times m$ matrix with valuesTRUE
or1
for every correctly reported target location, otherwiseFALSE
or0
. This must beFALSE
/0
whereS
isFALSE
/0
orD
(see below) isTRUE
/1
, otherwise will throw an error. -
D
: An$n \times m$ matrix with valuesTRUE
or1
for every location, otherwiseFALSE
or0
. This must beFALSE
/0
whereS
isFALSE
/0
orR
(see below) isTRUE
/1
, otherwise will throw an error.D
is optional if all trials are whole report. Whole-report trials can also be included by setting allD
of the respective trials toFALSE
/0
, since a partial report without distractors is effectively a whole report. -
T
: An$n$ -length numeric vector of exposure durations (in milliseconds).
data("tva_recovery")
data("tva_recovery_true_params")
RStanTVA
comes with a CombiTVA data set tva_recovery
of 50 simulated
subjects with 234 trials each. For each subject and trial, the true
underlying parameters are known exactly, which makes it very useful for
demonstrating the functionality of this package:
Of the 234 trials, half were carried out under the high
condition, and
the other half under the low
condition. Imagine that those are maybe
different levels of luminance, some sort of cognitive load or so. The
concrete manipulation is not really relevant but we do know that on
average,
Like predecessor software, RStanTVA
can be used to fit single
parameters to data sets. For example, if we wanted to estimate TVA
parameters to all trials of subject 20 in condition high
, then we
could first retrieve that subset from the full data set tva_recovery
:
tva_data <- tva_recovery %>% filter(subject == 20 & condition == "high")
tva_data
#> # A tibble: 117 × 9
#> # Groups: subject [1]
#> subject trial T condition nD S[,1] [,2] D[,1] R[,1] true_values$t[,1]
#> <int> <int> <dbl> <fct> <int> <int> <int> <int> <int> <dbl>
#> 1 20 2 33.3 high 0 1 1 0 1 34.5
#> 2 20 3 16.6 high 0 1 1 0 0 41.4
#> 3 20 4 150 high 4 1 1 1 0 56.8
#> 4 20 11 150 high 3 1 1 0 1 33.2
#> 5 20 12 33.3 high 0 1 1 0 0 22.5
#> 6 20 14 33.3 high 0 1 1 0 0 122.
#> 7 20 15 50 high 0 1 1 0 0 79.8
#> 8 20 17 33.3 high 0 1 1 0 0 28.1
#> 9 20 18 150 high 3 1 1 0 1 49.1
#> 10 20 19 150 high 4 1 1 0 0 66.1
#> # ℹ 107 more rows
#> # ℹ 13 more variables: S[3:6] <int>, D[2:6] <int>, R[2:6] <int>,
#> # true_values$t[2:6] <dbl>, true_values$v <dbl[,6]>, $t0 <dbl>, $K <int>,
#> # $C <dbl>, $alpha <dbl>, $w <dbl[,6]>, $mu0 <dbl>, $sigma0 <dbl>,
#> # $pK <dbl[,7]>
Then we can define the TVA model that we want to fit to the data. Here,
we are dealing with a CombiTVA paradigm, which is effectively a set of
different partial-report configurations. Let us assume a TVA model with
6 display locations, Gaussian
tva_model <- stantva_model(
locations = 6,
task = "pr",
w_mode = "locations",
t0_mode = "gaussian",
K_mode = "free",
sanity_checks = FALSE
)
If we wanted to look at the generated Stan code, this would be it:
/************************************************************************************
* StanTVA
* =======
* This is a StanTVA program, generated with RStanTVA (v0.2.0) Please cite as:
*
* Rabe M, Kyllingsbæk S (2025). _RStanTVA: TVA Models in 'Stan' using 'R'
* and 'StanTVA'_. R package version 0.2.0,
* <https://github.com/mmrabe/RStanTVA>.
*
* Configuration
* =============
* - formula = NULL
* - locations = 6
* - task = pr
* - regions = list()
* - C_mode = equal
* - w_mode = locations
* - t0_mode = gaussian
* - K_mode = free
* - max_K = 6
* - allow_guessing = FALSE
* - parallel = FALSE
* - save_log_lik = FALSE
* - priors = NULL
* - sanity_checks = FALSE
* - debug_neginf_loglik = FALSE
*
* License
* =======
* This program is licensed under the GNU General Public License 3. For a copy of
* the license agreement, see: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
************************************************************************************/
functions {
#include tva.stan
#include freeK.stan
#include gaussiant0.stan
vector calculate_v(data int nS, data array[] int S, data array[] int D, vector w, real C, real alpha) {
vector[6] s = rep_vector(C, 6);
array[nS] int Ss = get_matches(S);
vector[6] w_alpha = w;
for(i in 1:6) if(D[i]) w_alpha[i] *= alpha;
vector[nS] v = s[Ss] .* w_alpha[Ss] / sum(w_alpha[Ss]);
for(i in 1:nS) if(v[i] < machine_precision()) v[i] = machine_precision();
return v/1000.0;
}
real log_lik_single(data array[] int S, data array[] int D, data array[] int R, data int nS, data real T, vector w, real C, real alpha, vector pK, real mu0, real sigma0) {
real log_lik;
vector[nS] v = calculate_v(nS, S, D, to_vector(w), C, alpha);
log_lik = tva_pr_log(R, S, D, T, [mu0, sigma0]', pK, v);
return log_lik;
}
}
data {
int<lower=1> N;
array[N] real<lower=0> T;
array[N,6] int<lower=0,upper=1> S;
array[N,6] int<lower=0,upper=1> R;
array[N,6] int<lower=0,upper=1> D;
}
transformed data {
array[N] int nS;
for(i in 1:N) nS[i] = sum(S[i,]);
int total_nS = sum(nS);
}
parameters {
real<lower=machine_precision()> C;
simplex[6] w;
simplex[7] pK;
real mu0;
real<lower=machine_precision()> sigma0;
real<lower=machine_precision()> alpha;
}
model {
C ~ gamma(3.5, 0.035);
w ~ lognormal(0, 0.5);
pK ~ lognormal(0, 0.5);
mu0 ~ normal(20, 15);
sigma0 ~ gamma(2, 0.2);
alpha ~ lognormal(-0.4, 0.6);
// likelihood (only if prior != 0)
if(target() != negative_infinity()) {
for(i in 1:N) target += log_lik_single(S[i], D[i], R[i], nS[i], T[i], to_vector(w), C, alpha, to_vector(pK), mu0, sigma0);
}
}
Note that the file will include tva.stan
, freeK.stan
, and
gaussiant0.stan
, all of which are contained in the StanTVA library
embedded in the package. While tva.stan
contains a number of more
general functions for the likelihood computation for whole and partial
report paradigms, freeK.stan
and gaussiant0.stan
are modules that
specify the free tva.stan
is always required, the other two differ depending on the
selected assumptions for stantva_path()
and the RStanTVA function stantva_model()
will automatically include those when compiling.
We can now fit tva_model
to the tva_data
using maximum-likelihood
estimation (MLE):
tva_fit_mle <- optimizing(tva_model, tva_data)
tva_fit_mle$par[c("C","alpha","mu0","sigma0")]
#> C alpha mu0 sigma0
#> 103.6942724 0.9400363 13.9074017 4.4078324
… or using Bayesian HMC sampling:
tva_fit <- sampling(tva_model, tva_data)
tva_fit
#> StanTVA model with 6 free parameter(s), fitted with 4 chains, each with iter=2000; warmup=1000; thin=1
#>
#> Model configuration:
#> locations = 6
#> task = "pr"
#> regions = list()
#> C_mode = "equal"
#> w_mode = "locations"
#> t0_mode = "gaussian"
#> K_mode = "free"
#> max_K = 6
#> allow_guessing = FALSE
#> parallel = TRUE
#> save_log_lik = FALSE
#> sanity_checks = FALSE
#> debug_neginf_loglik = FALSE
#> Warning: Unknown or uninitialised column: `param`.
#>
#> Global parameters:
#> mean se_mean sd 2.5% 25% 50% 75% 97.5% n_eff Rhat
#> C 106.86 0.56 29.58 62.48 85.82 102.58 122.46 176.85 2759.20 1
#> w[1] 0.14 0.00 0.02 0.10 0.13 0.14 0.15 0.18 4640.87 1
#> w[2] 0.22 0.00 0.03 0.17 0.20 0.22 0.24 0.28 4516.45 1
#> w[3] 0.12 0.00 0.02 0.08 0.11 0.12 0.13 0.16 5781.36 1
#> w[4] 0.16 0.00 0.02 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.21 4003.64 1
#> w[5] 0.19 0.00 0.03 0.14 0.17 0.19 0.21 0.24 4137.62 1
#> w[6] 0.17 0.00 0.02 0.12 0.15 0.17 0.18 0.22 4426.74 1
#> pK[1] 0.11 0.00 0.02 0.07 0.09 0.10 0.12 0.15 4288.52 1
#> pK[2] 0.11 0.00 0.03 0.06 0.09 0.11 0.13 0.17 4105.34 1
#> pK[3] 0.20 0.00 0.04 0.13 0.18 0.20 0.23 0.28 4097.63 1
#> pK[4] 0.22 0.00 0.04 0.15 0.19 0.22 0.24 0.30 4694.32 1
#> pK[5] 0.12 0.00 0.03 0.07 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.18 4192.42 1
#> pK[6] 0.13 0.00 0.03 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.15 0.19 4244.12 1
#> pK[7] 0.12 0.00 0.03 0.07 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.19 3658.44 1
#> mu0 13.07 0.09 4.46 2.72 10.66 13.56 16.01 20.82 2242.50 1
#> sigma0 7.33 0.06 3.97 1.48 4.48 6.69 9.48 16.56 3735.63 1
#> alpha 1.07 0.01 0.38 0.50 0.81 1.02 1.27 1.99 3474.06 1
Above, we have fitted the model only to a subset of trials in one
experimental condition. What is novel in RStanTVA
is the possibility
to specify all kinds of hierarchical and nested parameter structures. At
first, we are now creating a subset of all trials of subject 20, which
includes trials in both conditions high
and low
:
tva_data_nested <- tva_recovery %>% filter(subject == 20)
tva_data_nested
#> # A tibble: 234 × 9
#> # Groups: subject [1]
#> subject trial T condition nD S[,1] [,2] D[,1] R[,1] true_values$t[,1]
#> <int> <int> <dbl> <fct> <int> <int> <int> <int> <int> <dbl>
#> 1 20 1 16.6 low 0 1 1 0 0 39.3
#> 2 20 2 33.3 high 0 1 1 0 1 34.5
#> 3 20 3 16.6 high 0 1 1 0 0 41.4
#> 4 20 4 150 high 4 1 1 1 0 56.8
#> 5 20 5 16.6 low 0 1 1 0 0 99.0
#> 6 20 6 100 low 0 1 1 0 1 29.0
#> 7 20 7 150 low 0 1 1 0 0 72.7
#> 8 20 8 150 low 0 1 1 0 1 28.6
#> 9 20 9 150 low 2 1 1 1 0 33.7
#> 10 20 10 16.6 low 0 1 1 0 0 79.0
#> # ℹ 224 more rows
#> # ℹ 13 more variables: S[3:6] <int>, D[2:6] <int>, R[2:6] <int>,
#> # true_values$t[2:6] <dbl>, true_values$v <dbl[,6]>, $t0 <dbl>, $K <int>,
#> # $C <dbl>, $alpha <dbl>, $w <dbl[,6]>, $mu0 <dbl>, $sigma0 <dbl>,
#> # $pK <dbl[,7]>
We can now define a model for partial report of 6 display locations with
Gaussian
tva_model_nested <- stantva_model(
formula = list(
log(C) ~ 1 + condition
),
locations = 6,
task = "pr",
w_mode = "locations",
t0_mode = "gaussian",
K_mode = "free",
sanity_checks = FALSE
)
The “regression” formula for
As a consequence,
The generated Stan code looks like this:
/************************************************************************************
* StanTVA
* =======
* This is a StanTVA program, generated with RStanTVA (v0.2.0) Please cite as:
*
* Rabe M, Kyllingsbæk S (2025). _RStanTVA: TVA Models in 'Stan' using 'R'
* and 'StanTVA'_. R package version 0.2.0,
* <https://github.com/mmrabe/RStanTVA>.
*
* Configuration
* =============
* - formula = list(log(C) ~ 1 + condition)
* - locations = 6
* - task = pr
* - regions = list()
* - C_mode = equal
* - w_mode = locations
* - t0_mode = gaussian
* - K_mode = free
* - max_K = 6
* - allow_guessing = FALSE
* - parallel = FALSE
* - save_log_lik = FALSE
* - priors = NULL
* - sanity_checks = FALSE
* - debug_neginf_loglik = FALSE
*
* License
* =======
* This program is licensed under the GNU General Public License 3. For a copy of
* the license agreement, see: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
************************************************************************************/
functions {
#include tva.stan
#include freeK.stan
#include gaussiant0.stan
vector calculate_v(data int nS, data array[] int S, data array[] int D, vector w, real alpha, real C) {
vector[6] s = rep_vector(C, 6);
array[nS] int Ss = get_matches(S);
vector[6] w_alpha = w;
for(i in 1:6) if(D[i]) w_alpha[i] *= alpha;
vector[nS] v = s[Ss] .* w_alpha[Ss] / sum(w_alpha[Ss]);
for(i in 1:nS) if(v[i] < machine_precision()) v[i] = machine_precision();
return v/1000.0;
}
real log_lik_single(data array[] int S, data array[] int D, data array[] int R, data int nS, data real T, vector w, real alpha, vector pK, real mu0, real sigma0, real C) {
real log_lik;
vector[nS] v = calculate_v(nS, S, D, to_vector(w), alpha, C);
log_lik = tva_pr_log(R, S, D, T, [mu0, sigma0]', pK, v);
return log_lik;
}
}
data {
int<lower=1> N;
array[N] real<lower=0> T;
array[N,6] int<lower=0,upper=1> S;
array[N,6] int<lower=0,upper=1> R;
array[N,6] int<lower=0,upper=1> D;
int<lower=0> M_C;
int<lower=0,upper=M_C> int_C;
matrix[N,M_C] X;
array[M_C] int map_C;
}
transformed data {
array[N] int nS;
for(i in 1:N) nS[i] = sum(S[i,]);
int total_nS = sum(nS);
int M = M_C;
}
parameters {
simplex[6] w;
simplex[7] pK;
real mu0;
real<lower=machine_precision()> sigma0;
real<lower=machine_precision()> alpha;
vector[M] b;
}
transformed parameters {
vector<lower=machine_precision()>[N] C;
{
C = X[,map_C] * b[map_C];
C = exp(C);
}
for(i in 1:N) if(is_nan(C[i]) || is_inf(C[i])) reject("Rejecting proposal because C[",i,"] = ",C[i]," !");
}
model {
if(int_C) {
b[map_C[:(int_C-1)]] ~ normal(0.0,5.0);
b[map_C[(int_C+1):]] ~ normal(0.0,5.0);
b[map_C[int_C]] ~ normal(0.0,10.0);
} else {
b[map_C] ~ normal(0.0,5.0);
}
w ~ lognormal(0, 0.5);
pK ~ lognormal(0, 0.5);
mu0 ~ normal(20, 15);
sigma0 ~ gamma(2, 0.2);
alpha ~ lognormal(-0.4, 0.6);
// likelihood (only if prior != 0)
if(target() != negative_infinity()) {
for(i in 1:N) target += log_lik_single(S[i], D[i], R[i], nS[i], T[i], to_vector(w), alpha, to_vector(pK), mu0, sigma0, C[i]);
}
}
You can do the same with any other model parameter and with the same
flexibility that you may be used to from lme4
or brms
. This also
includes the possibility of continuous covariates to directly model
effects of all kinds of biological, physical, or psychological metrics.
If you do not define a such a formula for any given parameter, it will
be fitted as a single invariant parameter across all trials. This can be
useful if you want to keep other parameters strictly constant across
conditions, e.g., in order to borrow statistical power.
We can fit tva_model_nested
to the tva_data_nested
using
maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) or Bayesian parameter sampling in
the exactly same way as above:
tva_fit_nested <- sampling(tva_model_nested, tva_data_nested)
tva_fit_nested
#> StanTVA model with 6 free parameter(s), fitted with 4 chains, each with iter=2000; warmup=1000; thin=1
#>
#> Model configuration:
#> formula = list(log(C) ~ 1 + condition)
#> locations = 6
#> task = "pr"
#> regions = list()
#> C_mode = "equal"
#> w_mode = "locations"
#> t0_mode = "gaussian"
#> K_mode = "free"
#> max_K = 6
#> allow_guessing = FALSE
#> parallel = TRUE
#> save_log_lik = FALSE
#> sanity_checks = FALSE
#> debug_neginf_loglik = FALSE
#>
#> Global parameters:
#> mean se_mean sd 2.5% 25% 50% 75% 97.5% n_eff Rhat
#> w[1] 0.17 0.00 0.02 0.13 0.15 0.17 0.18 0.20 6389.54 1
#> w[2] 0.21 0.00 0.02 0.17 0.20 0.21 0.23 0.26 5931.22 1
#> w[3] 0.13 0.00 0.02 0.11 0.12 0.13 0.14 0.17 6396.66 1
#> w[4] 0.14 0.00 0.02 0.11 0.12 0.13 0.15 0.17 6375.33 1
#> w[5] 0.17 0.00 0.02 0.14 0.16 0.17 0.18 0.21 6887.20 1
#> w[6] 0.18 0.00 0.02 0.14 0.17 0.18 0.19 0.22 7444.45 1
#> pK[1] 0.10 0.00 0.02 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.11 0.14 6850.11 1
#> pK[2] 0.10 0.00 0.02 0.06 0.09 0.10 0.11 0.14 6559.53 1
#> pK[3] 0.21 0.00 0.03 0.15 0.19 0.21 0.23 0.28 5605.04 1
#> pK[4] 0.27 0.00 0.04 0.20 0.24 0.26 0.29 0.34 6691.55 1
#> pK[5] 0.11 0.00 0.03 0.07 0.09 0.11 0.13 0.16 5173.85 1
#> pK[6] 0.12 0.00 0.03 0.07 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.18 5815.02 1
#> pK[7] 0.10 0.00 0.03 0.05 0.08 0.10 0.11 0.16 4411.66 1
#> mu0 10.71 0.07 3.90 1.32 8.70 11.25 13.30 16.91 2789.80 1
#> sigma0 6.27 0.05 3.46 1.03 3.81 5.82 8.22 14.30 4072.46 1
#> alpha 1.01 0.00 0.28 0.55 0.83 0.98 1.17 1.63 5856.68 1
#> Warning: Unknown or uninitialised column: `param`.
#>
#> Fixed effects:
#> mean se_mean sd 2.5% 25% 50% 75% 97.5% n_eff Rhat
#> C_Intercept 4.60 0.01 0.29 4.06 4.4 4.59 4.78 5.22 2959.86 1
#> C_conditionhigh -0.03 0.00 0.27 -0.56 -0.2 -0.02 0.15 0.50 4063.37 1
If you have the necessary computational ressources, you can also fit a
single hierarchical model to the entire data set, where you can let the
parameters vary not only between conditions but even between, e.g.,
subjects, experimenters, locations, devices, etc. As for the previous
model, you may also choose to only let specific parameters vary, or just
all of them. You can specify combine model covariance matrices to
capture correlations between parameters (as is done below for
priors <-
prior(normal(0,.07),dpar=C)+
prior(normal(4,.2),dpar=C,coef=Intercept)+
prior(normal(0,.07),dpar=alpha)+
prior(normal(-0.2,.1),dpar=alpha,coef=Intercept)+
prior(normal(0,.03),dpar=pK)+
prior(normal(0,.1),dpar=pK,coef=Intercept)+
prior(normal(0,5),dpar=mu0)+
prior(normal(30,15),dpar=mu0,coef=Intercept)+
prior(normal(0,.04),dpar=sigma0)+
prior(normal(0,.2),dpar=sigma0,coef=Intercept)+
prior(normal(0,.05),dpar=w)+
prior(normal(0,0.1),dpar=w,coef=Intercept)
tva_hierarchical_model <- stantva_model(
formula = list(
log(C) ~ 1 + condition + (1 + condition | C_alpha | subject),
log(w) ~ 1 + (1 | subject),
log(pK) ~ 1 + (1 | subject),
mu0 ~ 1 + (1 | subject),
log(sigma0) ~ 1 + (1 | subject),
log(alpha) ~ 1 + (1 | C_alpha | subject)
),
locations = 6,
task = "pr",
w_mode = "locations",
t0_mode = "gaussian",
K_mode = "free",
priors = priors
)
The power of hierarchical modelling is especially apparent when dealing with sparse data. Therefore, we are here only looking at the first 100 trials of the first 10 subjects:
tva_hierarchical_subset <- tva_recovery %>% filter(subject <= 10 & trial <= 100)
tva_hierarchical_fit <- sampling(tva_hierarchical_model, tva_hierarchical_subset)
tva_hierarchical_fit
#> StanTVA model with 6 free parameter(s), fitted with 4 chains, each with iter=2000; warmup=1000; thin=1
#>
#> Model configuration:
#> formula = list(log(C) ~ 1 + condition + (1 + condition | C_alpha | subject), log(alpha) ~ 1 + (1 | C_alpha | subject), log(pK) ~ 1 + (1 | subject), mu0 ~ 1 + (1 | subject), log(sigma0) ~ 1 + (1 | subject), log(w) ~ 1 + (1 | subject))
#> locations = 6
#> task = "pr"
#> regions = list()
#> C_mode = "equal"
#> w_mode = "locations"
#> t0_mode = "gaussian"
#> K_mode = "free"
#> max_K = 6
#> allow_guessing = FALSE
#> parallel = TRUE
#> save_log_lik = FALSE
#> priors = prior(normal(0, 0.07), dpar = C) + prior(normal(4, 0.2), coef = Intercept, dpar = C) + prior(normal(0, 0.07), dpar = alpha) + prior(normal(-0.2, 0.1), coef = Intercept, dpar = alpha) + prior(normal(0, 0.03), dpar = pK) + prior(normal(0, 0.1), coef = Intercept, dpar = pK) + prior(normal(0, 5), dpar = mu0) + prior(normal(30, 15), coef = Intercept, dpar = mu0) + prior(normal(0, 0.04), dpar = sigma0) + prior(normal(0, 0.2), coef = Intercept, dpar = sigma0) + prior(normal(0, 0.05), dpar = w) + prior(normal(0, 0.1), coef = Intercept, dpar = w) + prior(normal(0, 10), class = sd, coef = Intercept, dpar = mu0) + prior(normal(0, 5), class = sd, dpar = mu0)
#> sanity_checks = TRUE
#> debug_neginf_loglik = FALSE
#>
#> Fixed effects:
#> mean se_mean sd 2.5% 25% 50% 75% 97.5% n_eff Rhat
#> C_Intercept 4.25 0.00 0.08 4.09 4.19 4.24 4.30 4.41 3634.74 1
#> C_conditionhigh 0.01 0.00 0.06 -0.10 -0.03 0.01 0.05 0.13 3818.13 1
#> alpha_Intercept -0.25 0.00 0.08 -0.42 -0.31 -0.25 -0.20 -0.10 4208.60 1
#> pK_Intercept[1] -0.18 0.00 0.08 -0.35 -0.24 -0.18 -0.12 -0.02 3475.77 1
#> pK_Intercept[2] -0.08 0.00 0.09 -0.25 -0.14 -0.08 -0.02 0.08 3117.08 1
#> pK_Intercept[3] 0.21 0.00 0.09 0.03 0.15 0.21 0.27 0.38 2297.50 1
#> pK_Intercept[4] 0.11 0.00 0.09 -0.06 0.05 0.11 0.17 0.28 5884.16 1
#> pK_Intercept[5] -0.03 0.00 0.09 -0.21 -0.08 -0.03 0.03 0.14 4882.48 1
#> pK_Intercept[6] -0.02 0.00 0.09 -0.21 -0.09 -0.02 0.04 0.16 6240.98 1
#> mu0_Intercept 10.87 0.09 3.01 5.09 8.87 10.90 12.80 16.78 1199.21 1
#> sigma0_Intercept 0.02 0.00 0.20 -0.37 -0.10 0.02 0.16 0.40 4652.04 1
#> w_Intercept[1] -0.06 0.00 0.06 -0.19 -0.11 -0.06 -0.02 0.07 4082.87 1
#> w_Intercept[2] 0.04 0.00 0.06 -0.08 -0.01 0.04 0.08 0.16 3846.57 1
#> w_Intercept[3] 0.01 0.00 0.06 -0.11 -0.03 0.01 0.06 0.14 4923.33 1
#> w_Intercept[4] 0.06 0.00 0.07 -0.08 0.02 0.06 0.10 0.18 1321.66 1
#> w_Intercept[5] 0.03 0.00 0.06 -0.08 -0.01 0.03 0.08 0.16 4374.83 1
#>
#> Hyperparameters on random effects (subject level, N = 10):
#> mean se_mean sd 2.5%
#> sd(C_subject_Intercept) 0.07 0.00 0.05 0.00
#> sd(C_subject_conditionhigh) 0.04 0.00 0.03 0.00
#> sd(alpha_subject_Intercept) 0.08 0.00 0.06 0.00
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[1]) 0.13 0.01 0.09 0.01
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[2]) 0.08 0.01 0.06 0.00
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[3]) 0.13 0.01 0.09 0.01
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[4]) 0.10 0.00 0.07 0.01
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[5]) 0.08 0.00 0.06 0.01
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[6]) 0.08 0.00 0.06 0.00
#> sd(mu0_subject_Intercept) 8.52 0.06 2.64 4.50
#> sd(sigma0_subject_Intercept) 0.08 0.01 0.06 0.00
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[1]) 0.08 0.00 0.06 0.01
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[2]) 0.12 0.00 0.07 0.01
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[3]) 0.08 0.00 0.05 0.01
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[4]) 0.12 0.00 0.07 0.01
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[5]) 0.08 0.00 0.05 0.01
#> cor(C_subject_Intercept,C_subject_conditionhigh) -0.01 0.01 0.34 -0.65
#> cor(C_subject_Intercept,alpha_subject_Intercept) 0.00 0.01 0.35 -0.64
#> cor(C_subject_conditionhigh,alpha_subject_Intercept) 0.00 0.01 0.35 -0.67
#> 25% 50% 75% 97.5%
#> sd(C_subject_Intercept) 0.03 0.07 0.11 0.20
#> sd(C_subject_conditionhigh) 0.02 0.03 0.06 0.11
#> sd(alpha_subject_Intercept) 0.03 0.07 0.11 0.22
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[1]) 0.06 0.12 0.19 0.31
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[2]) 0.03 0.06 0.11 0.23
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[3]) 0.06 0.12 0.20 0.33
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[4]) 0.05 0.09 0.14 0.25
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[5]) 0.03 0.06 0.11 0.23
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[6]) 0.04 0.07 0.12 0.21
#> sd(mu0_subject_Intercept) 6.63 8.13 10.03 14.47
#> sd(sigma0_subject_Intercept) 0.03 0.07 0.12 0.22
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[1]) 0.03 0.07 0.12 0.21
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[2]) 0.06 0.11 0.16 0.26
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[3]) 0.04 0.07 0.11 0.19
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[4]) 0.06 0.12 0.17 0.26
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[5]) 0.04 0.07 0.11 0.20
#> cor(C_subject_Intercept,C_subject_conditionhigh) -0.26 -0.01 0.25 0.65
#> cor(C_subject_Intercept,alpha_subject_Intercept) -0.25 -0.01 0.25 0.67
#> cor(C_subject_conditionhigh,alpha_subject_Intercept) -0.26 0.00 0.25 0.66
#> n_eff Rhat
#> sd(C_subject_Intercept) 243.44 1.02
#> sd(C_subject_conditionhigh) 217.85 1.03
#> sd(alpha_subject_Intercept) 212.46 1.02
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[1]) 135.83 1.03
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[2]) 114.19 1.02
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[3]) 167.43 1.03
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[4]) 204.51 1.01
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[5]) 180.01 1.00
#> sd(pK_subject_Intercept[6]) 221.09 1.01
#> sd(mu0_subject_Intercept) 2242.84 1.00
#> sd(sigma0_subject_Intercept) 135.26 1.03
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[1]) 174.37 1.01
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[2]) 240.97 1.01
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[3]) 249.55 1.01
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[4]) 204.04 1.01
#> sd(w_subject_Intercept[5]) 300.78 1.01
#> cor(C_subject_Intercept,C_subject_conditionhigh) 3201.99 1.00
#> cor(C_subject_Intercept,alpha_subject_Intercept) 1814.57 1.00
#> cor(C_subject_conditionhigh,alpha_subject_Intercept) 3113.59 1.00
There are two ways to speed up the parameter fitting: (1) Parallel
running of HMC chains, and (2) within-chain parallelization. The
technical details are described in more detail in the documenation of
Stan and rstan
. You can use both, either, or none.
By default, rstan
will fit 4 chains sequentially. You can choose to
have them run in parallel instead by specifying the argument cores
to
the number of chains to run in parallel. For example, to run all 4
chains in parallel, you can use:
fit <- sampling(tva_model, tva_data, chains = 4, cores = 4)
This may not work well in some cases, e.g., when run during knitting an Rmd script.
You can also have the actual likelihood computation run in parallel,
which will calculate the likelihood for all trials independently,
scattered across separate threads, and ultimately aggregate them. We
are using Stan’s map_rect()
function for this, which can even be used
for workload distribution across several compute nodes using MPI.
To take advantage of this, you need to explicitly specify the number of
CPUs before compiling the model. This is because
stantva_model()
/stantva_code()
will need to produce slightly
different (and more complex) Stan code when using this feature. For
example, if you want to use 8 CPUs:
rstan_options(threads_per_chain = 8)
tva_model <- stantva_model(...)
fit <- sampling(tva_model, tva_data)
If you are unsure how many CPUs are available on the target machine, you
can use parallel::detectCores()
to determine that number:
rstan_options(threads_per_chain = parallel::detectCores())
Note that, for very complex models, you may notice average CPU loads significantly below 100%. This is because some computational steps in Stan cannot fully take advantage of the parallelization.
As mentioned above, both can be combined but you should keep in mind
that the total number of requested CPUs is given by
If you do not want to risk to overwhelm your machine, the number of
threads should always lie between the number of total CPUs
(parallel::detectCores()
), and that number divided by the number of
chains, depending on the complexity of the model:
total_chains <- 4
parallel_chains <- total_chains # can also be lower
nthreads_per_chain <- ceiling(parallel::detectCores()/parallel_chains) # for simpler models
nthreads_per_chain <- parallel::detectCores() # for very complex models
rstan_options(threads_per_chain = nthreads_per_chain)
tva_model <- stantva_model(...)
fit <- sampling(tva_model, tva_data, chains = total_chains, cores = parallel_chains)