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concept

n.

1. an idea that represents a class of objects or events or their properties, such as cats, walking, honesty, blue, or fast. See conceptualization; conjunctive concept; disjunctive concept. See also abstract idea.

2. in conditioning, a class of stimuli to which an organism responds in a similar or identical manner (see stimulus generalization) and that the organism discriminates from other classes. —conceptual adj.

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Psychology term of the day

December 26th 2024

factor method

factor method

any means by which latent variables (factors) are extracted or identified in factor analysis. Widely used factor methods include principal components analysis, which seeks to find a set of linear combinations called components that help explain the correlations among variables; and principal-axis factor analysis, in which underlying dimensions or factors are sought to explain the correlations among variables after separating out communality and putting aside the error variance in a set of variables.