The purpose of this vignette is to discuss the parameterizations of the families (i.e., response distributions) used in brms. For a more general overview of the package see
vignette("brms")Throughout this vignette, we use \(y\) to refer to the response variable and \(\eta\) to refer to the (non-)linear predictor (see help(brmsformula) for details on supported predictor terms). We write \(y_i\) and \(\eta_i\) for the response and linear predictor of observation \(i\). Furthermore, we use \(f\) for a density function and \(g\) for an inverse link function.
The density of the gaussian family is given by \[f(y_i) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}\sigma} \exp\left(-\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{y_i - g(\eta_i)}{\sigma}\right)^2\right)\] where \(\sigma\) is the residual standard deviation. The density of the student family is given by \[f(y_i) = \frac{\Gamma((\nu + 1)/2)}{\Gamma(\nu/2)} \frac{1}{\sqrt{\nu\pi}\sigma} \left(1 + \frac{1}{\nu} \left(\frac{y_i - g(\eta_i)}{\sigma}\right)^2\right)^{-(\nu+1)/2}\] \(\Gamma\) denotes the gamma function and \(\nu\) are the degrees of freedom. As \(\nu \rightarrow \infty\), the student distribution becomes the gaussian distribution. For location shift models, \(y_i\) can be any real value.
The density of the binomial family is given by \[f(y_i) = {N_i \choose y_i} g(\eta_i)^{y_i} (1-g(\eta_i))^{N_i - y_i}\] where \(N_i\) is the number of trials and \(y_i \in \{0, ... , N_i\}\). When all \(N_i\) are \(1\) (i.e., \(y_i \in \{0,1\}\)), the bernoulli distribution for binary data arises. binomial and bernoulli families are distinguished in brms as the bernoulli distribution has its own implementation in Stan that is computationlly more efficient.
For \(y_i \in \mathbb{N}_0\), the density of the poisson family is given by \[f(y_i) = \frac{g(\eta_i)^{y_i}}{y_i!} exp(-g(\eta_i))\] The density of the negative binomial family is \[f(y_i) = {y_i + \phi - 1 \choose y_i} \left(\frac{g(\eta_i)}{g(\eta_i) + \phi}\right)^{y_i} \left(\frac{\phi}{g(\eta_i) + \phi}\right)^\phi\] where \(\phi\) is a positive precision parameter. For \(\phi \rightarrow \infty\), the negative binomial distribution becomes the poisson distribution. The density of the geometric family arises if \(\phi\) is set to \(1\).
With survival models we mean all models that are defined on the positive reals only, that is \(y_i \in \mathbb{R}^+\). The density of the lognormal family is given by \[f(y_i) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}\sigma x} \exp\left(-\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\log(y_i) - g(\eta_i)}{\sigma}\right)^2\right)\] where \(\sigma\) is the residual standard deviation on the log-scale. The density of the Gamma family is given by \[f(y_i) = \frac{(\alpha / g(\eta_i))^\alpha}{\Gamma(\alpha)} y_i^{\alpha-1} \exp\left(-\frac{\alpha y_i}{g(\eta_i)}\right)\] where \(\alpha\) is a positive shape parameter. The density of the weibull family is given by \[f(y_i) = \frac{\alpha}{g(\eta_i / \alpha)} \left(\frac{y_i}{g(\eta_i / \alpha)}\right)^{\alpha-1} \exp\left(-\left(\frac{y_i}{g(\eta_i / \alpha)}\right)^\alpha\right)\] where \(\alpha\) is again a positive shape parameter. The exponential family arises if \(\alpha\) is set to \(1\) for either the gamma or weibull distribution.
The density of the beta family for \(y_i \in (0,1)\) is given by \[f(y_i) = \frac{y_i^{g(\eta_i) \phi - 1} (1-y_i)^{(1-g(\eta_i)) \phi)-1}}{B(g(\eta_i) \phi, (1-g(\eta_i)) \phi)}\] where \(B\) is the beta function and \(\phi\) is a positive precision parameter.
The density of the von_mises family for \(y_i \in (-\pi,\pi)\) is given by \[f(y_i) = \frac{\exp(\kappa \cos(y_i - g(\eta_i)))}{2\pi I_0(\kappa)}\] where \(I_0\) is the modified Bessel function of order 0 and \(\kappa\) is a precision parameter.
For ordinal and categorical models, \(y_i\) is one of the categories \(1, ..., K\). The intercepts of ordinal models are called thresholds and are denoted as \(\tau_k\), with \(k \in \{1, ..., K-1\}\), whereas \(\eta\) does not contain a fixed effects intercept. Note that the applied link functions \(h\) are technically distribution functions \(\mathbb{R} \rightarrow [0,1]\). The density of the cumulative family (implementing the most basic ordinal model) is given by \[f(y_i) = g(\tau_{y_i + 1} - \eta_i) - g(\tau_{y_i} - \eta_i)\] The densities of the sratio (stopping ratio) and cratio (continuation ratio) families are given by \[f(y_i) = g(\tau_{y_i + 1} - \eta_i) \prod_{k = 1}^{y_i} (1 - g(\tau_{k} - \eta_i))\] and \[f(y_i) = (1 - g(\eta_i - \tau_{y_i + 1})) \prod_{k = 1}^{y_i} g(\eta_i - \tau_{k})\] respectively. Note that both families are equivalent for symmetric link functions such as logit or probit. The density of the acat (adjacent category) family is given by \[f(y_i) = \frac{\prod_{k=1}^{y_i} g(\eta_i - \tau_{k}) \prod_{k=y_i+1}^K(1-g(\eta_i - \tau_{k}))}{\sum_{k=0}^K\prod_{j=1}^k g(\eta_i-\tau_{j}) \prod_{j=k+1}^K(1-g(\eta_i - \tau_{j}))}\] For the logit link, this can be simplified to \[f(y_i) = \frac{\exp \left(\sum_{k=1}^{y_i} (\eta_i - \tau_{k}) \right)} {\sum_{k=0}^K \exp\left(\sum_{j=1}^k (\eta_i - \tau_{j}) \right)}\] The linear predictor \(\eta\) can be generalized to also depend on the category \(k\) for a subset of predictors. This leads to so called category specific effects (for details on how to specify them see help(brm)). Note that cumulative and sratio models use \(\tau - \eta\), whereas cratio and acat use \(\eta - \tau\). This is done to ensure that larger values of \(\eta\) increase the probability of higher reponse categories.
The categorical family is currently only implemented with the logit link function and has density \[f(y_i) = \frac{\exp(\eta_{iy_i})}{\sum_{k = 1}^{K} \exp(\eta_{ik})}\] Note that \(\eta\) does also depend on the category \(k\). For reasons of identifiability, \(\eta_{i1}\) is set to \(0\).
Zero-inflated and hurdle families extend existing families by adding special processes for responses that are zero. The densitiy of a zero-inflated family is given by \[f_z(y_i) = g_z(\eta_{zi}) + (1 - g_z(\eta_{zi})) f(y_i) \quad \text{if } y_i = 0 \\
f_z(y_i) = (1 - g_z(\eta_{zi}) f(y_i) \quad \text{if } y_i > 0\] The zero-inflation part has its own linear predictor \(\eta_{zi}\) combined with the logit link \(g_z\). Currently implemented families are zero_inflated_poisson, zero_inflated_binomial, zero_inflated_negbinomial, and zero_inflated_beta. The density of a hurdle family is given by \[f_z(y_i) = g_z(\eta_{zi}) \quad \text{if } y_i = 0 \\
f_z(y_i) = (1 - g_z(\eta_{zi})) f(y_i) / (1 - f(0)) \quad \text{if } y_i > 0\] Currently implemented families are hurdle_poisson, hurdle_negbinomial, and hurdle_gamma. Both linear predictors (i.e., \(\eta\) and \(\eta_z\)) can be specified within the formula argument. See help(brmsformula) for instructions on how to do that.