GENERALITY OF MULTIDIMENSIONAL REPRESENTATIONS

Since multidimensional scaling is being used for the dimensionalization of an increasingly broad variety of objects, it is important to have techniques for evaluating the resulting dimensions. The term "generality" is used to refer to the degree to which a dimensional representation for a set of objects can be used to account for behavior in a variety of tasks or situations. It is asserted that generality of a multidimensional configuration is its most important property and that the generality of the results of any multidimensional scaling analysis is a matter for empirical verification. A method using a factor analytic procedure in conjunction with multidimensional scaling to investigate generality is suggested and an example of its use is presented.