Citation

Stopher PR. Proc. IRCOBI 1975; 3: 263-272.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1975, International Research Council on Biomechanics of Injury)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A psychological approach to the quantification of qualitative attributes is described. The basis of the method is to use quantitative comparisons made by subjects about stimuli to develop scales that describe the amounts of the qualities possessed by the stimuli. Two principal subgroups of the approach are available: a unidimensional sealing based upon an initial restrictive assumption that the attribute to be measured exists in a one-dimensional space and can be described along a linear continuum; and multidimensional sealing which may be used to define the dimensionality (in a Euclidean space) of the attribute. Three research tasks are identified: testing of the sealing concept in a transportation situation; fitting of the resulting scale values or indices into a travel demand model in order to determine whether there is a relationship between revealed behavior and perceived attribute ratings of alternative travel modes; the mapping of the psychological scale values onto engineering specifications and testing the resulting proxy variables in a revealed behavior nexus. The results are reported of testing the first 2 tasks and their application to the formulation of a convenience index and a comfort index.