Let's say I am trying to see if there are speed differences among different types of cars (e.g., jeep, SUV, truck, sports car). I also want to see whether the car store (A, B, C, D, E) has an effect on this. I don't have a specific hypothesis about the car stores, but I assume that certain stores tend to sell certain types of cars (e.g., SUVs at Store A and trucks at Store B). So, I tried to fit a linear mixed effect model with lme4 and nlme. I have a question about the difference between these two models: nlme: ``` m1 <- lme(speed ~ car_type + car_store + car_type:car_store, data = data1, random = ~ 1 | car_owner, method = "ML") ``` lme4 equivalent is: ``` m2 <- lmer(speed ~ car_type * car_store + (1 | car_owner), data = data1, REML = FALSE) ``` Now, my question is, can I have interaction as the main effect in nlme like this: ``` m3 <- lme(speed ~ car_type + car_type:car_store, data = data1, random = ~ 1 | car_owner, method = "ML") ``` So far, I can't find the equivalent of `m3` in lme4. Can anyone help me understand why? Also, ideally, I think I can achieve my purpose with `m3`. But is there anything else that I should consider? like perhaps it's better to use lme4 and car_store as main/fixed effect as well?