Workshop on linear and generalised additive mixed models

From December 4th to 6th 2017, the Institute for Linguistics - Phonetics held a bilateral workshop on "linear and generalised additive mixed models for linguists" with researchers from France (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Université Paris Diderot). The Paris-Cologne-Collaborative Meeting has been conducted in Paris and in Cologne so far. The workshop has been the collaboration's third bilateral meet-up.

The workshop provided a hands-on introduction to linear and generalised additive mixed models (LMMs and GAMMs).

LMMs are regression models that can be used with data where measurements are naturally grouped by speakers, words or some other higher-level units. LMMs handle such situations by using random intercepts and slopes. As the name suggests, LMMs are best suited to dealing with patterns that are well approximated by straight lines. GAMMs extend LMMs to data with non-linear patterns by using so-called smooth terms.

LMMs and GAMMs are incredibly flexible and are suitable to a large range of different linguistic data sets. However, they are also harder to work with than conventional ANOVAs and regression models. The workshop aimed to help people getting started with these techniques by tackling fundamental concepts and giving practice in fitting their own models.

Workshop programme (PDF)

PARIS participants: Ioana Chitoran, Hiyon Yoo, Rachel Albar, Marguerite Cameron, Chloé Gfeller, Qianwen Guan, Hannah King, Anqi Liu, Anisia Popescu, Cécile Fougeron, Nicolas Audibert, Nora Fangel-Gustavson, Amelia Pettirossi, Yaru Wu, Giusy Turco

COLOGNE participants: Anne Hermes (organiser), Barbara Tomaszewicz, Tabea Thies (in CRC projects A01, A04), Andreas Brocher (in CRC project C04), Henrik Niemann, Yulia Esaulova (in CRC project B06), Franziska Kretschmar (in CRC project B07), Jane Mertens, Simon Ritter (in CRC project A04), Luca Moretti, Doris Mücke (in CRC project A04), Reinhold Greisbach, Christine Röhr (in CRC project A01), Diana Dimitrova, Francesco Cangemi (in CRC project A02), Martine Grice (in CRC projects A01, A02)