title: Avoiding degeneracy in metric unfolding by penalizing the intercept.
abstract: It has long been thought that degeneracy in unfolding only concerned non-metric unfolding. Recently, Busing, Groenen, and Heiser have established that degeneracy occurs for all transformations that include estimation of an intercept and a slope. Consequently, degeneracy also plagues metric unfolding, since one member of the metric transformation family, the interval transformation, includes estimation of both an intercept and a slope. In this paper, a simple solution is proposed to the degeneracy problem for metric unfolding by penalizing for an undesirable intercept. An application of this approach will illustrate its potential.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Leiden University, The Netherlands. busing@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
authors.forename: Frank M T A
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Busing
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D015982:Bias; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003196:Computer Graphics; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D016014:Linear Models; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009716:Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted; D011336:Probability; D012919:Social Behavior; D012984:Software