AUTHOR=Tong Xin , Ke Zijun TITLE=Assessing the Impact of Precision Parameter Prior in Bayesian Non-parametric Growth Curve Modeling JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=12 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.624588 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2021.624588 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=

Bayesian non-parametric (BNP) modeling has been developed and proven to be a powerful tool to analyze messy data with complex structures. Despite the increasing popularity of BNP modeling, it also faces challenges. One challenge is the estimation of the precision parameter in the Dirichlet process mixtures. In this study, we focus on a BNP growth curve model and investigate how non-informative prior, weakly informative prior, accurate informative prior, and inaccurate informative prior affect the model convergence, parameter estimation, and computation time. A simulation study has been conducted. We conclude that the non-informative prior for the precision parameter is less preferred because it yields a much lower convergence rate, and growth curve parameter estimates are not sensitive to informative priors.