interaction.plot {base}

R Documentation

Two-way Interaction Plot

Description

Plots the mean (or other summary) of the response for two-way combinations of factors, thereby illustrating possible interactions.

Usage

interaction.plot(x.factor, trace.factor, response, fun = mean,
                 type = c("l", "p"), legend = TRUE,
                 trace.label = deparse(substitute(trace.factor)),
                 fixed = FALSE, xlab, ylab, ylim, lty, col = 1,
                 pch = c(1:9, 0, letters), ...)

Arguments

x.factor	a factor whose levels will form the x axis.
trace.factor	another factor whose levels will form the traces.
response	a numeric variable giving the response
fun	the function to compute the summary. Should return a single real value.
type	the type of plot: lines or points.
legend	logical. Should a legend be included?
trace.label	overall label for the legend.
fixed	Should the legend be in the order of the levels of trace.factor or in the order of the traces at their right-hand ends?
xlab	the x label of the plot.
ylab	the y label of the plot.
ylim	numeric of length 2 giving the y limits for the plot.
lty	line type for the lines drawn, with sensible default.
col	the color to be used for plotting.
pch	a vector of plotting symbols or characters, with sensible default.
...	graphics parameters to be passed to the plotting routines.

Details

By default the levels of x.factor are plotted on the x axis in their given order, with extra space left at the right for the legend (if specified). If x.factor is an ordered factor and the levels are numeric, these numeric values are used for the x axis.

The response and hence its summary can contain missing values. If so, the missing values and the line segments joining them are omitted from the plot (and this can be somewhat disconcerting).

The graphics parameters xlab, ylab, ylim, lty, col and pch are given suitable defaults (and xlim and xaxs are set and cannot be overriden). The defaults are to cycle through the line types, use the foreground colour, and to use the symbols 1:9, 0, and the capital letters to plot the traces.

Note

Some of the argument names and the precise behaviour are chosen for S-compatibility.

Examples

data(ToothGrowth)
attach(ToothGrowth)
interaction.plot(dose, supp, len, fixed=TRUE)
dose <- ordered(dose)
interaction.plot(dose, supp, len, fixed=TRUE)
detach()

data(OrchardSprays)
attach(OrchardSprays)
interaction.plot(treatment, rowpos, decrease)
interaction.plot(rowpos, treatment, decrease)
## order the rows by their mean effect
rowpos <- factor(rowpos, levels=sort.list(tapply(decrease, rowpos, mean)))
interaction.plot(rowpos, treatment, decrease)
detach()

data(esoph)
attach(esoph)
interaction.plot(agegp, alcgp, ncases/ncontrols)
interaction.plot(agegp, tobgp, ncases/ncontrols, trace.label="tobacco",
                 fixed=TRUE)
detach()

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