Three different methods of data collection were examined in which subjects judged proximity between object pairs. Significant differences in accuracy were found among the three methods, presumably due to differences in the extent to which subjects are able to describe their perceptions under the various methods. (Author/RC)

Three different methods of data collection in which subjects judged proximity between object pairs were examined. One method required subjects to partition objects into homogeneous subsets; the second entailed rating object pairs on a similarity-dissimilarity continuum; and the third involved comparing interobject proximities to a fixed standard.…