--- title: "M2 Process Information and Channel Ablation" output: rmarkdown::html_vignette vignette: > %\VignetteIndexEntry{M2 Process Information and Channel Ablation} %\VignetteEngine{knitr::rmarkdown} %\VignetteEncoding{UTF-8} --- ```{r setup, include=FALSE} knitr::opts_chunk$set(collapse = TRUE, comment = "#>") ``` ## A common response target The central M2 question is not whether RT and gaze have their own likelihood information. It is whether they improve measurement of the scored-response trait under a joint model. `multimodal_m2_ablation()` therefore fits a compatible sequence: - M0: response only; - M1: response + RT; - M2: response + RT + gaze. `multimodal_m2_process_information()` compares all three models on the **same response observations**. ```{r, eval=FALSE} library(eyeprocess) sim <- simulate_multimodal_m2( n_person = 150, n_item = 15, seed = 220 ) abl <- multimodal_m2_ablation( sim, chains = 4, parallel_chains = 4, iter_warmup = 1000, iter_sampling = 1000, seed = 221 ) info <- multimodal_m2_process_information(abl) info plot(info, type = "response_elpd") plot(info, type = "theta_variance") ``` ## Two complementary quantities The evidence object reports: 1. **response-target PSIS-LOO ELPD**, using only the scored-response log-likelihood in every model and MCMC relative-efficiency adjustment, for held-out response cells among the observed persons and items; 2. **the corresponding pointwise ELPD-difference uncertainty and maximum Pareto-k diagnostic**; and 3. **posterior variance of ability**, summarized across persons. This LOO target is conditional on the study's observed person/item population. It is not a transport estimate for entirely new persons or new items. A useful process channel may improve response-target held-out prediction, reduce posterior uncertainty, both, or neither. A destabilizing channel may worsen predictive performance or inflate uncertainty. ## Non-additivity The package does not sum channel Fisher information by default. Under correlated latent and item structures, information is generally not additive in the simple independent-channel sense. The ablation sequence preserves this point explicitly. ## Interpretation An incremental response-target gain supports a model-based measurement claim under the fitted assumptions. It does not by itself establish that gaze measures attention, that RT measures strategy, or that either channel is causally informative.