Abstract

SCHOLTEN, Marc  and  CALDEIRA, Pedro Zany. O senso do escalonamento multidimensional. Aná. Psicológica [online]. 1997, vol.15, n.1, pp.63-85. ISSN 0870-8231.

This article provides an introduction to MultiDimensional Scaling (MDS) as it refers to a family of spatial-distance models for the representation of proximity data. The article focuses on what MDS does, in the sense of what type of representations it produces given a set of proximity data, and what the researcher has to do in order to make MDS do it, in the sense of what type od data-collection and data-preparation methods are to be used in order to obtain data that are amenable to MDS analysis. The article largely ignores the technical matter of how MDS does it, although it provides guidelines to aid the research in deciding whether it is justifiable to fit a spatial-distance model to the proximity data obtained, choosing among the principal models and model options in data analysis, and reahing a valid interpretation of the MDS results.

Keywords : Proximity Data; MultiDimensional (MDS).

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )