consistency check

a method often built into an experimental or statistical procedure to verify that data are accurate or that computations have been done correctly. For example, questionnaire items with slightly different wording but identical meaning should be answered by individuals in the same way, and respondents claiming to have a high educational degree should be of a certain age.

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Psychology term of the day

January 14th 2025

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]