Deletion, replacement and mean-shift for diagnostics in linear mixed models

Deletion, replacement and mean-shift model are three approaches frequently used to detect influential observations and outliers. For general linear model with known covariance matrix, it is known that these three approaches lead to the same update formulae for the estimates of the regression coefficients. However if the covariance matrix is indexed by some unknown parameters which also need to be estimated, the situation is unclear. In this paper, we show under a common subclass of linear mixed models that the three approaches are no longer equivalent. For maximum likelihood estimation, replacement is equivalent to mean-shift model but both are not equivalent to case deletion. For restricted maximum likelihood estimation, mean-shift model is equivalent to case deletion but both are not equivalent to replacement. We also demonstrate with real data that misuse of replacement and mean-shift model in place of case deletion can lead to incorrect results.

► We study the equivalence among deletion, replacement and mean-shift model. ► Replacement is shown to be equivalent to mean-shift model under MLE. ► Mean-shift model is equivalent to deletion under restricted MLE. ► However, the three approaches are not equivalent in general.