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The Vectors Of Mind
''The Vectors of Mind'' is a book published by American psychologist Louis Leon Thurstone in 1935 that summarized Thurstone's methodology for multiple factor analysis. Overview ''The Vectors of Mind'' presents Thurstone's methods for conducting a factor analysis on a set of variables that allow for more than one factor, an important extension of Spearman's unifactor method. Having multiple factors adds significant complications and much of the book is focussed on the problem of rotation. It attempts to solve this problem by providing an objective basis for the rotation factors, called simple structure, and advocates the use of oblique (correlated) factors to achieve a simple structure. The book utilizes his centroid method of factor extraction, which made it feasible to complete the arduous calculations necessary for a factor analysis at a time when fast electronic computers had not even been imagined. This is a predominantly technical book that relies heavily upon mathematical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Leon Thurstone
Louis Leon Thurstone (29 May 1887 – 29 September 1955) was an American pioneer in the fields of psychometrics and psychophysics. He conceived the approach to measurement known as the law of comparative judgment, and is well known for his contributions to factor analysis. A ''Review of General Psychology'' survey, published in 2002, ranked Thurstone as the 88th most cited psychologist of the 20th century, tied with John Garcia, James J. Gibson, David Rumelhart, Margaret Floy Washburn, and Robert S. Woodworth. Background and history Louis Leon Thurstone was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Swedish immigrant parents. Thurstone originally received a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University in 1912. Thurstone was offered a brief assistantship in the laboratory of Thomas Edison. In 1914, after two years as an instructor of geometry and drafting at the University of Minnesota, he enrolled as a graduate student in psychology at the University of Chicago (PhD, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Spearman
Charles Edward Spearman, FRS (10 September 1863 – 17 September 1945) was an English psychologist known for work in statistics, as a pioneer of factor analysis, and for Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. He also did seminal work on models for human intelligence, including his theory that disparate cognitive test scores reflect a single General intelligence factor and coining the term ''g'' factor. Biography Spearman had an unusual background for a psychologist. In his childhood he was ambitious to follow an academic career. He first joined the army as a regular officer of engineers in August 1883, and was promoted to captain on 8 July 1893, serving in the Munster Fusiliers. After 15 years he resigned in 1897 to study for a PhD in experimental psychology. In Britain, psychology was generally seen as a branch of philosophy and Spearman chose to study in Leipzig under Wilhelm Wundt, because it was a center of the "new psychology"—one that used the scientific method inst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychometrics
Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally refers to specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and related activities. Psychometrics is concerned with the objective measurement of latent constructs that cannot be directly observed. Examples of latent constructs include intelligence, introversion, mental disorders, and educational achievement. The levels of individuals on nonobservable latent variables are inferred through mathematical modeling based on what is observed from individuals' responses to items on tests and scales. Practitioners are described as psychometricians, although not all who engage in psychometric research go by this title. Psychometricians usually possess specific qualifications such as degrees or certifications, and most are psychologists with advanced graduate training in psychometrics and measurement theory. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Principal Component Analysis
Principal component analysis (PCA) is a popular technique for analyzing large datasets containing a high number of dimensions/features per observation, increasing the interpretability of data while preserving the maximum amount of information, and enabling the visualization of multidimensional data. Formally, PCA is a statistical technique for reducing the dimensionality of a dataset. This is accomplished by linearly transforming the data into a new coordinate system where (most of) the variation in the data can be described with fewer dimensions than the initial data. Many studies use the first two principal components in order to plot the data in two dimensions and to visually identify clusters of closely related data points. Principal component analysis has applications in many fields such as population genetics, microbiome studies, and atmospheric science. The principal components of a collection of points in a real coordinate space are a sequence of p unit vectors, where th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It has 54 divisions—interest groups for different subspecialties of psychology or topical areas. The APA has an annual budget of around $115 million. Profile The APA has task forces that issue policy statements on various matters of social importance, including abortion, human rights, the welfare of detainees, human trafficking, the rights of the mentally ill, IQ testing, sexual orientation change efforts, and gender equality. Governance APA is a corporation chartered in the District of Columbia. APA's bylaws describe structural components that serve as a system of checks and balances to ensure democratic process. The organizational entities include: * APA President. The APA's president is elected by the membership. The president chairs th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polychoric Correlation
In statistics, polychoric correlation{{Cite web, url=https://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/procstat/65543/HTML/default/viewer.htm#procstat_corr_details14.htm, title=Base SAS(R) 9.3 Procedures Guide: Statistical Procedures, Second Edition, website=support.sas.com, language=en, access-date=2018-01-10 is a technique for estimating the correlation between two hypothesised normally distributed continuous latent variables, from two observed ordinal variables. Tetrachoric correlation is a special case of the polychoric correlation applicable when both observed variables are dichotomous. These names derive from the polychoric and tetrachoric series which are used for estimation of these correlations. Applications and examples This technique is frequently applied when analysing items on self-report instruments such as personality tests and surveys that often use rating scales with a small number of response options (e.g., strongly disagree to strongly agree). The smaller the numbe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the best universities in the world and it is among the most selective in the United States. The university is composed of an undergraduate college and five graduate research divisions, which contain all of the university's graduate programs and interdisciplinary committees. Chicago has eight professional schools: the Law School, the Booth School of Business, the Pritzker School of Medicine, the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, the Harris School of Public Policy, the Divinity School, the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies, and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. The university has additional campuses and centers in London, Paris, Beijing, Delhi, and Hong Kong, as well as in downtown ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exploratory Factor Analysis
In multivariate statistics, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is a statistical method used to uncover the underlying structure of a relatively large set of variables. EFA is a technique within factor analysis whose overarching goal is to identify the underlying relationships between measured variables. It is commonly used by researchers when developing a scale (a ''scale'' is a collection of questions used to measure a particular research topic) and serves to identify a set of latent constructs underlying a battery of measured variables. It should be used when the researcher has no ''a priori'' hypothesis about factors or patterns of measured variables. ''Measured variables'' are any one of several attributes of people that may be observed and measured. Examples of measured variables could be the physical height, weight, and pulse rate of a human being. Usually, researchers would have a large number of measured variables, which are assumed to be related to a smaller number of "un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Confirmatory Factor Analysis
In statistics, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is a special form of factor analysis, most commonly used in social science research.Kline, R. B. (2010). ''Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (3rd ed.).'' New York, New York: Guilford Press. It is used to test whether measures of a construct are consistent with a researcher's understanding of the nature of that construct (or factor). As such, the objective of confirmatory factor analysis is to test whether the data fit a hypothesized measurement model. This hypothesized model is based on theory and/or previous analytic research. CFA was first developed by Jöreskog (1969) and has built upon and replaced older methods of analyzing construct validity such as the MTMM Matrix as described in Campbell & Fiske (1959). In confirmatory factor analysis, the researcher first develops a hypothesis about what factors they believe are underlying the measures used (e.g., " Depression" being the factor underlying the Beck Dep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Structural Equation Modeling
Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a label for a diverse set of methods used by scientists in both experimental and observational research across the sciences, business, and other fields. It is used most in the social and behavioral sciences. A definition of SEM is difficult without reference to highly technical language, but a good starting place is the name itself. SEM involves the construction of a ''model'', to represent how various aspects of an observable or theoretical phenomenon are thought to be causally structurally related to one another. The ''structural'' aspect of the model implies theoretical associations between variables that represent the phenomenon under investigation. The postulated causal structuring is often depicted with arrows representing causal connections between variables (as in Figures 1 and 2) but these causal connections can be equivalently represented as equations. The causal structures imply that specific patterns of connections should appe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1935 Non-fiction Books
Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude Franco-Italian Agreement of 1935, an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first person to successfully complete a solo flight from Hawaii to California, a distance of 2,408 miles. * January 13 – A plebiscite in the Saar (League of Nations), Territory of the Saar Basin shows that 90.3% of those voting wish to join Germany. * January 24 – The first canned beer is sold in Richmond, Virginia, United States, by Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company. February * February 6 – Parker Brothers begins selling the board game Monopoly (game), Monopoly in the United States. * February 13 – Richard Hauptmann is convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. in the United States. * February 15 – The discovery and clinical development of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Factor Analysis
Factor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors. For example, it is possible that variations in six observed variables mainly reflect the variations in two unobserved (underlying) variables. Factor analysis searches for such joint variations in response to unobserved latent variables. The observed variables are modelled as linear combinations of the potential factors plus "error" terms, hence factor analysis can be thought of as a special case of errors-in-variables models. Simply put, the factor loading of a variable quantifies the extent to which the variable is related to a given factor. A common rationale behind factor analytic methods is that the information gained about the interdependencies between observed variables can be used later to reduce the set of variables in a dataset. Factor analysis is commonly used in psychometrics, persona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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