Philippine E-Journals

Multidimensional Scaling (MDS): Concepts and Applications

Violeta C. Menil

Discipline: Mathematics

 

Abstract:

Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) may be defined broadly as a family of geometric models far Multidimensional Representation of data and a corresponding set of methods far fitting such models to actual data (Carroll and Arabie 1980). While several different geometric models comprise the family of models, a much narrower definition would limit the term to spatial distance models far similarities, dissimilarities or other proximities data. Spatial distance models in MDS provide us with a set of tools for recovering the underlying structure which is "hidden" in the data, and far generating a spatial representation of the relationships among the set of n stimuli or objects designated as 01 , 02 , •••• ,0,,.