Browsing by Author "Nygren, Thomas E."

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    An examination of conditional violations of axioms for additive conjoint measurement
    (1985) Nygren, Thomas E.
    Axiomatic conjoint measurement methodology offers a useful approach for evaluating different composition rules as potential models for fitting the components of multidimensional stimuli. The usefulness of this methodology has been somewhat hindered in applied settings because of a lack of an adequate error theory for testing the fit of data to the axioms. This paper presents the results of an attempt to provide a basis for an examination of errors of the conjoint measurement axioms. Specifically, this paper describes a means of evaluating the fit of an additive conjoint measurement model to a three-factor design. For each of the critical axioms of axiomatic conjoint measurement, the proportions of errors that would be expected by chance for different levels of satisfaction of the simple independence property are examined. The results indicate that violations of these axioms occur much less often than intuitively might be expected. Error proportion tables based on monte carlo analyses are presented to aid in comparisons with empirically obtained results. It is shown that two types of violations of the axioms can be defined and used to differentiate between systematic and unsystematic errors in fallible data.
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    Limitations of additive conjoint scaling procedures: Detecting nonadditivity when additivity is known to be violated
    (1980) Nygren, Thomas E.
    Two sets of three-outcome gambles were constructed to vary factorially along the factors Amount to Lose, Amount to Win, Probability of Losing, and Probability of Winning. Single stimulus ratings of attractiveness and risk were obtained for each of the constructed gambles from 19 subjects. In addition, paired comparison strength of preference and difference in risk judgments were obtained for a subset of these gambles. Two additive conjoint scaling procedures, Carroll’s (1972) MDPREF and Johnson’s (1975) NMRG, were used to generate predicted paired comparison preference and risk judgments from the single stimulus ratings for each subject. These predictions were then compared with the observed paired comparison judgments. Results indicated that although the goodness-of-fit measures associated with each of the scaling models indicated that the subject’s data were being fit very well by the additive models, additivity among the payoff and probability factors was clearly violated. A procedure for detecting nonadditivity is outlined and illustrated with the data. The limitations of using these additive conjoint scaling procedures as predictive techniques when additivity is violated are shown and their implications are discussed.
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    The relationship between the perceived risk and attractiveness of gambles: A multidimensional analysis
    (1977) Nygren, Thomas E.
    Judgments of perceived risk and attractiveness for a set of 50 two-outcome gambles were obtained from 39 college students. The data were used to test various ordinal properties of the gambles implied by Pollatsek and Tversky’s theory of risk and Coombs’ Portfolio theory. In addition, the MDPREF multidimensional scaling procedure was used (1) to test the assumption that gambles are perceived and evaluated as multidimensional stimuli; (2) to determine the characteristics of gambles affecting perceived risk and attractiveness; (3) to assess the extent of individual differences in perception of gambles; and (4) to test the implication of Portfolio theory that attractiveness is a function of perceived risk and expected value. The results supported the multidimensional nature of gambles and the implications of Portfolio theory. In the MDPREF analyses large individual differences were found in perceived risk and attractiveness of gambles. Potential uses of multidimensional scaling techniques in further research on individual differences in gambling behavior are proposed and discussed.