Patrick Mair

Ingwer Borg

Patrick J.F. Groenen

This book introduces multidimensional scaling (MDS) and unfolding as data analysis techniques for applied researchers. MDS is used for the analysis of proximity data on a set of objects, representing the data as distances between points in a geometric space (usually of two dimensions). Unfolding is a related method that maps preference data (typically evaluative ratings of different persons on a set of objects) as distances between two sets of points (representing the persons and the objects, resp.). This second edition has been completely revised to reflect new developments and the coverage of unfolding has also been substantially expanded. Intended for applied researchers whose main interests are in using these methods as tools for building substantive theories, it discusses numerous applications (classical and recent), highlights practical issues (such as evaluating model fit), presents ways to enforce theoretical expectations for the scaling solutions, and addresses the typical mistakes that MDS/unfolding users tend to make. Further, it shows how MDS and unfolding can be used in practical research work, primarily by using the smacof package in the R environment but also Proxscal in SPSS. It is a valuable resource for psychologists, social scientists, and market researchers, with a basic understanding of multivariate statistics (such as multiple regression and factor analysis).

Applied Multidimensional Scaling and Unfolding

This textbook describes the broadening methodology spectrum of psychological measurement in order to meet the statistical needs of a modern psychologist. The way statistics is used, and maybe even perceived, in psychology has drastically changed over the last few years; computationally as well as methodologically. R has taken the field of psychology by storm, to the point that it can now safely be considered the lingua franca for statistical data analysis in psychology. The goal of this book is to give the reader a starting point when analyzing data using a particular method, including advanced versions, and to hopefully motivate him or her to delve deeper into additional literature on the method. Beginning with one of the oldest psychometric model formulations, the true score model, Mair devotes the early chapters to exploring confirmatory factor analysis, modern test theory, and a sequence of multivariate exploratory method. Subsequent chapters present special techniques useful for modern psychological applications including correlation networks, sophisticated parametric clustering techniques, longitudinal measurements on a single participant, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. In addition to using real-life data sets to demonstrate each method, the book also reports each method in three parts-- first describing when and why to apply it, then how to compute the method in R, and finally how to present, visualize, and interpret the results. Requiring a basic knowledge of statistical methods and R software, but written in a casual tone, this text is ideal for graduate students in psychology. Relevant courses include methods of scaling, latent variable modeling, psychometrics for graduate students in Psychology, and multivariate methods in the social sciences.

Patrick Mair

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