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concept hierarchy

a collection of objects, events, or other items with common properties arranged in a multilevel structure. Concepts on the higher levels have broad meanings, whereas those at lower levels are more specific. For example, a concept hierarchy of anxiety disorders would place that term on top, with phobias lower, and specific types of phobia (e.g., claustrophobia) on the bottom.

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Psychology term of the day

January 14th 2025

Kruskal–Shepard scaling

Kruskal–Shepard scaling

a type of multidimensional scaling applied to judgments of similarity or dissimilarity for pairs of items (e.g., cities). The dissimilarities are represented by distances between items in a highly dimensional space: Larger distances indicate greater dissimilarity. [William Henry Kruskal (1919–2005), U.S. statistician; Roger N. Shepard (1929–  ), U.S. experimental and cognitive psychologist]