Hierarchical modeling of paired comparison data
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Updated: Oct 8, 2026

A Psychophysics Paradigm for the Collection and Analysis of Similarity Judgments
Published on: March 1, 2022
1Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois 61820, USA. ubockenh@psych.uiuc.edu
Abstract:
The method of paired comparisons belongs to a small group of techniques that provide explicit information about the consistency of individual and aggregated choices. This article investigates the link between the individual- and group-level judgments by extending R. D. Luce's (1959) model, which was originally developed for individual choice behavior, to a mixed-effects paired comparison model. It is shown that standard multilevel software for binary data can be used to estimate the model. The interpretation of the paired comparison parameters and statistical model tests are discussed in detail. An extensive analysis of an experimental study illustrates the usefulness of a hierarchical approach in modeling multiple pairwise judgments.
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