Proximity and Preference

Problems in the Multidimensional Analysis of Large Data Sets

Reginald G. Golledge and John N. Rayner, editors

Proximity and Preference was first published in 1982.

How does one design experiments for collecting large volumes of data such as those needed for marketing surveys, studies of travel patterns, and public opinion polls? This is a common problem for social and behavioral scientists. The papers in this collection address the problems of working with large data sets primarily from the perspectives of geography and psychology, two fields that share a common quantitative research methodology.

After an introductory paper on substantive and methodological aspects of the interface between geography and psychology, the book is divided into three sections, experimental design and measurement problems, preference functions and choice behavior, and special problems of analyzing large data sets with multidimensional methods. Each paper is directed toward some fundamental problem such as those relating to experimental design, data reliability, and the selection of analytical methods which are appropriate for data sets of various sizes, completeness, and reliability.

Reginald G. Golledge is a professor of cognitive and behavioral geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

John N. Rayner is Professor Emeritus of Geography at Ohio State University.

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