plotmarginal-effectsr-marginaleffects

Wiggly confidence interval with marginaleffects::plot_slopes


I want to plot the marginal effects of an independent variable 'Shannon' estimated with a linear (lm) model. The variable appears both linearly and quadratically in the model, so the marginal effect changes along the range of 'Shannon' values.

To do this I use marginaleffects::plot_slopes(model = MODEL, variables = "Shannon", condition = 'Shannon', conf_level = 0.95)

I am very confused as to why my confidence interval is wiggly? I was expecting a smooth band around my estimated marginal effects line.

enter image description here


Solution

  • This appears to be an artefact of numerical instability when computing derivatives. One solution is to select a different step size manually using the eps argument:

    library(marginaleffects)
    plot_slopes(
      model = MODEL,
      variables = "Shannon",
      condition = 'Shannon',
      eps = 0.01)
    

    FYI, I am the author of the package and exchanged emails with the original poster. This solved their problem.