%% Lesson 6: Introduction to the Bootstrap
%
% When we summarize a data set with a statistic, such as when we calculate
% a threshold from psychometric function data, we'd also like to know
% something about the reliability (variability) of that statistic.  The
% brute-force way to estimate variability is to run the same experiment
% multiple times and calculate the mean and standard error of our
% statistic.  But this can be time-consuming and expensive.  Fortunately,
% there is a way of estimating the variability of a statistic from a single
% data set.  This 'bootstrapping' method seems impossible, but as we'll
% demonstrate here it works remarkably well.

%% The mean as a simple example of a statistic
%
% The arithmetic mean is used so commonly that we don't really think of it
% as one particular way to summarize a list of numbers - that is, as a
% 'statistic'.  But the mean one of several ways to estimate the 'central
% tendency' of a data set (e.g. there's also the median and mode).  Since
% the mean is used so commonly, we have a firm understanding about how it
% behaves for different set sizes.  
%
% Specifically, we have the Central Limit Theorem that states that for
% sufficiently large data sets, the mean should be pulled from a normal
% distribution that has a standard deviation that shrinks by a factor
% of 1/sqrt(n) where n is the size of the data set.  
%
% We can demonstrate this in Matlab in just a couple of lines of code.
% We'll generate 25 numbers 2000 times from a unit normal distribution
% (mean 0, variance 1) and look at the distribution of the 2000 means:
%
% First we'll do something a little weird.  We're using the statistic
% 'mean' as an example, but I want to be able use other functions as well.
% This is a perfect time to introduce the 'function handle', which is a way
% of defining a variable that acts as a function.  We can then later change
% the definition of this variable so that a different calculation is made
% every time this variable is 'used'.
%
% We'll define the function handle 'myStatistic' to be the function 'mean'

clear all
myStatistic = @mean;

%%
% Here's an option for an arbitrary statistic (commented out for later use):

% myStatistic = @(x) abs(mean(x))

%%
% Now we'll run our statistic on 2000 sample data sets, each with 25
% numbers drawn from a unit normal.

n = 25;        %size of each data set
nReps = 2000;  %number of data sets or 'experiments'

data = randn(n,nReps);  %n x nReps draws from unit normal probability distribution

populationStat = zeros(1,nReps);
for i=1:nReps
    %Calculate our statistic on each column in 'data'
    populationStat(i) = myStatistic(data(:,i));
end


%%
% If our statistic is the mean, then we'll show that the standard deviation
% 'populationStat' is close to 1/sqrt(n) = 1/5 = 0.2;

if strcmp(func2str(myStatistic),'mean')
    disp(sprintf('Expected s.d.: %g, Actual s.d.: %5.3f',1/sqrt(n),std(populationStat)));
end
%%
% We'll show the distribution of our statistic as a histogram:
figure(1)
clf
hist(populationStat,50)  %50 bins
xlabel(func2str(myStatistic));
title('Samples drawn from the population');

%%
% Instead of using the standard deviation as a measure of variability, from
% here on we'll talk about 'confidence intervals'.  This is a better way of
% describing variability when dealing with non-normal distributions. A 95%
% confidence interval contains the middle 95% of the numbers in a list. The
% confidence interval associated with the standard deviation is roughly the
% 68% confidence interval, since interval between -1 and 1 under the
% standard normal distribution contains about 68% of the area.
%
% A more precise value of the percent for 1 standard deviation can be
% calculated with the 'Cumulative Normal' function, which gives the area
% under the normal distribution to the left of x:

CIrange = 100*(NormalCumulative(1,0,1) - NormalCumulative(-1,0,1))

%%
% For our example, this confidence interval of about 68.3% should be between 
% -.2 and 0.2, since 0.2 is the expected standard deviation.
%
% The endpoints of the confidence interval can be calcualted with Matlab's
% 'prctile' function.

populationCI = prctile(populationStat,[50-CIrange/2,50+CIrange/2])

%%
% Draw the mean and confidence interval on the histogram
hold on
ylim = get(gca,'YLim');

plot(mean(populationStat)*[1,1],ylim*1.05,'r-','LineWidth',2);
plot(populationCI(1)*[1,1],ylim*1.05,'g-','LineWidth',2);
plot(populationCI(2)*[1,1],ylim*1.05,'g-','LineWidth',2);

%% Bootstrapping from a single data set
%
% Suppose we only have one data set of 25 numbers and don't have the luxury
% of running the experiment 2000 times.  So we only have a single
% calculation of our statistic form this one 'experiment':

x = randn(1,n);
sampleStat = myStatistic(x);

%% Sampling with replacement
%
% Bootstrapping is method for estimating the variability of our statistic
% from just one sample of 25 values.  The trick is to run a simulation much
% like we did before, but instead of repeatedly drawing 25 numbers from the
% population, we draw 25 numbers 'with replacement' from our existing set
% of 25 numbers. 'Sampling with replacement' means to draw numbers out of
% the 25 while allowing for repeated draws of the same number.
%
% Sampling with replacement is easy in Matlab.  First we generate a matrix
% of integers that range from 1 to n to use as indices into our existing
% data set.

id = ceil(rand(n,nReps)*n);

%%
% Then we use this index to 'sample' our existing data set:
bootstrapData = x(id);

%%
% Finally, we'll calculate our statistic on each of the columns containing
% 25 draws.

bootstrapStat = zeros(1,nReps);
for i=1:nReps
    bootstrapStat(i) = myStatistic(bootstrapData(:,i));
end

%%
% We'll show the distribution of our bootstrapped statistic as a histogram:

figure(2)
clf
hist(bootstrapStat,50)  %50 bins
xlabel(func2str(myStatistic))
title('Samples re-drawn from a single sample');

%%
% Then calculate and draw the confidence intervals like we did before
bootstrapCI = prctile(bootstrapStat,[50-CIrange/2,50+CIrange/2]);

hold on
ylim = get(gca,'YLim');
h1=plot(bootstrapCI(1)*[1,1],ylim*1.05,'g-','LineWidth',2);
plot(bootstrapCI(2)*[1,1],ylim*1.05,'g-','LineWidth',2);

%%
% Notice that the mean of our bootstrapped statistic isn't zero.  In fact,
% the mean of this histogram should be very near the statistic on the
% sample we used to generate the bootstrap, which we'll mark on the
% histogram:

plot(sampleStat*[1,1],ylim*1.05,'r-','LineWidth',2);

%%
% This illustrates an important point about the bootstrap method: The
% distribution of bootstrapped statistics won't necessarily match the
% distribution of the statistics on the population (compare figures 1 and
% 2), even if we could increase our number of bootstrapped measures to
% infinity.
%
%% The'bias-corrected and accelerated' (BCa) confidence interval
%
% There's one more step in the way the confidence intervals are calculated
% in practice.  It turns out that there's a slight bias in this basic
% procedure which is most apparent when the distribution of the statistic
% is skewed.
%
% On average, the bootstrap confidence interval will be slightly too narrow.
% If the statistic is 'mean', then in the limit the width of the confidence
% interval is exactly what you'd expect if you used the 'population'
% standard deviation instead of the 'sample' standard deviation for the
% expected width. That is, if the standard deviation function used when
% calculating the expected width used an 'n' in the denominator instead of
% 'n-1'.
%
% I've implemented this BCa method, along with the general bootstrapping
% procedure we used above in a single a function called 'bootstrap'.  It
% takes in as arguments a function handle to our statistic, the sample
% values (which we call x), the number of repetitions and a confidence
% interval range. Here's how to use it:

bootstrapCI = bootstrap(myStatistic,x,nReps,CIrange);

%%
% For comparison we'll plot this 'corrected' confidence interval on the
% histogram:

h2=plot(bootstrapCI(1)*[1,1],ylim*1.05,'y-','LineWidth',2);
plot(bootstrapCI(2)*[1,1],ylim*1.05,'y-','LineWidth',2);

legend([h1,h2],{sprintf('original %3.1f%%',CIrange),sprintf('BCa %3.1f%%',CIrange)});

%%
% For our well-behaved function 'mean' the two confidence intervals will be
% very similar.  So for this example, this complicated correction procedure
% doesn't make much difference. If you understand the basic bootstrap
% method (without correction), you have about 99% of the intuition for the
% whole procedure.  

%% Hypothesis testing
%
% The bootstrapping algorithm tells us something about the reliability of
% our statistic based on our simple sample.  We can use the confidence
% interval to test the hypothesis that the statistic run on our sample of
% 25 numbers is significantly difference from the population average.  
%
% In the real world, we don't know the population average (that's what
% we're trying to estimate), but in our simulation the population average
% will be close to the mean of the distribution show in figure 1, since
% this is the distribution of 2000 statistics based on the population.

nullStat = mean(populationStat);  %null hypothesis statistic

%% 
% It'll be pretty close to zero for the statistic 'mean'
%
% For hypothesis testing, we'll use the ubiquitious '.05' criterion level
% (95% confidence interval)

CIrange = 95;
bootstrapCI = bootstrap(myStatistic,x,nReps,CIrange);

%%
% Here are the locations of the endpoints for the 95% confidence interval:
plot(bootstrapCI(1)*[1,1],ylim*1.05,'k-','LineWidth',2);
h3= plot(bootstrapCI(2)*[1,1],ylim*1.05,'k-','LineWidth',2);

legend([h1,h2,h3],{'original','BCa corrected','BCa 95%'});

%% 
% Is the population mean 'nullStat' outside our confidence interval?  Let's
% find out:
if nullStat<bootstrapCI(1) || nullStat>bootstrapCI(2)
    str = 'Reject';
else
    str = 'Fail to reject';
end
disp(sprintf('%s the null hypothes at alpha = %5.2f',str,(1-CIrange/100)));

%%
% By design, we should reject the null hypothesis 5% of the time. These 5%
% are 'Type I' errors because the sample was drawn from the population so
% we know that the null hypothesis is true.  
%
% To check this, we'll run 1000 'Experiments' where in each experiment we
% do what we just did: generate a sample data set, calculate the statistic
% and 95% confidence intervals and run the hypothesis test.
%
% This takes a little while - each experiment calls 'bootstrap' which in
% turn runs 2000 statistics on resampled data.  We'll use matlab's
% 'waitbar' to track the progress so we know whether or not we have time to
% go get a cup of coffee.

%%
%
nExperiments = 1000;
CIrange = 95;
nReject = 0; %this will be incremented every time the null hypothesis is rejected

%%
% set up the 'waitbar'
h = waitbar(0,sprintf('running %d "experiments"',nExperiments));

for i=1:nExperiments
    %pull out a new sample
    x = randn(1,n);
    CI = bootstrap(myStatistic,x,nReps,CIrange,1);
    if nullStat<CI(1) || nullStat>CI(2)
        nReject = nReject+1;
    end
    waitbar(i/nExperiments,h)
end

delete(h)

disp(sprintf('Rejection of null hypothesis: Expected: %5.3f, Simulated: %5.3f',(1-CIrange/100),nReject/nExperiments));

%%
% This is a little scary.  I consistently find that I reject the null
% hypothesis more often than I should - even with a simple statistic like
% 'mean'.  This means that the bootstrapping algorithm might be leading
% people to claim positive results when they're really not significant.
% Yikes!


%% Comparing our 'bootstrap' function to Matlab's 'bootc'
%
% Matlab provides a bootstrapping function that does essentially the same
% thing as 'bootstrap'; that is it can calculate the confidence interval
% using the 'bias accelerated' correction (it can do other things too). If
% you have purchased Matlab's statistic toolbox you can run the next
% section to compare matlab's version with ours.  If not, the punch line is
% that the two programs give essentially the same answer. Interestingly,
% since the bootstrap is a stochastic process, neither method gives the
% same answer every time.  But it looks like the distribution of answers
% from both programs are identical, meaning that the two functions are
% doing the same thing.

nExperiments = 	1000;
ours = zeros(nExperiments,2);
theirs = zeros(nExperiments,2);

h = waitbar(0,sprintf('running %d simulations',nExperiments));
for i=1:nExperiments
    ours(i,:)  = bootstrap(myStatistic,x,nReps,CIrange,1)';
    theirs(i,:) = bootci(2000,{myStatistic, x}) ;
    waitbar(i/nExperiments,h)
end

delete(h)

%%
% Plot histograms of our 'bootstrap' interval endpoints along with those
% from 'bootci'

figure(3)
clf

for i=1:2
    subplot(1,2,i)
    hist([ours(:,i),theirs(:,i)])
    if i==1
        title('Low')
    else
        title('High')
    end
    disp(sprintf('Means: ours %g, theirs %g',mean(ours(:,i)),mean(theirs(:,i))));
    disp(sprintf('S.D.: ours %g, theirs %g',std(ours(:,i)),std(theirs(:,i))));
end

%%
% Since matlab's 'bootci' and our 'bootstrap' appear to be the same, our
% scary observation that we're rejecting the null hypothesis too often
% remains scary (or gets scarier). 

%% Exersises
%
% # Try changing 'myStatistic' to something less 'normal'.  For example,
% 'myStatistic = @(x) abs(mean(x)) is highly skewed.  How does the analysis
% change? What sort of crazy statistics can you make up?  
% # Bootstrapping from a single sample of only 25 numbers is pushing the lower
% limit.  Try using a sample of 100 numbers instead and see if the
% percentage of rejections of the null hypothesis gets closer to 5%.  
% # (Advanced) You could try this nonparametric procedure to measure
% variability in the threshold parameter for psychometric function fits.
% For sampling the 2AFC data with replacement, you'll have to sample both
% 'results.intensity' and 'results.response' together.  The 'bootstrap'
% program won't because it isn't written to allow for functions that have
% more than one parameter.  You'll have to either use 'bootci' or modify
% the code in this lesson instead and punt on the 'BCa' correction.








