Hello everyone,
I am building a hierarchical model. When setting a distribution parameter either to an observed stochastic or to a fixed value (using option1 or option2 below), I get slightly different results.
#option1
obs_x = pm.Normal(‘obs_x’, mu=eta[:, 0], sd=meas_noise_x, shape=N, observed=x_noisy)
obs_y = pm.Normal(‘obs_y’, mu=eta[:, 1], sd=meas_noise_y, shape=N, observed=y_noisy)
#option2
x_noise_dist = pm.Uniform(‘x_noise_dist’, 0, 2, observed=meas_noise_x)
y_noise_dist = pm.Uniform(‘y_noise_dist’, 0, 2, observed=meas_noise_y)
#obs_x = pm.Normal(‘obs_x’, mu=eta[:, 0], sd=x_noise_dist, shape=N, observed=x_noisy)
#obs_y = pm.Normal(‘obs_y’, mu=eta[:, 1], sd=y_noise_dist, shape=N, observed=y_noisy)
The difference in the mean value for the different parameters is similar to mcse_mean and mcse_sd, but sometimes slightly larger. Could you please explain me what is the difference in assumptions between these two implementations?
Thank you for this great platform and the discussions!
Pedro