Abstract
Making relative and absolute judgments of alternatives is compared.
Relative judgments, following Saaty's procedure, require that each possible pair of conditions be compared. The subject indicates which member of the pair is preferred, then gives the magnitude of the preference on a 1–9 scale. The scores then are entered into a matrix and eigenvectors calculated for each subject in each condition. These eigenvectors then are evaluated in a conventional subjects × conditions analysis of variance.
Two experiments are reported which show relative rating using eigenvectors is a more sensitive rating instrument than absolute rating.
Experiment 1 compared discomfort glare for three simulated streetlight luminances. Experiment 2 evaluated the likability of various fonts when used on transparencies with two sizes of fonts (subtending.57 or.72°), two styles (bold and regular) and three types (executive, roman and sans serif).
The relative rating method is a “more sensitive instrument.” It has two disadvantages. One, it requires evaluation of all possible pairs of conditions by the same subject so the experiment itself may take longer. Second, the program to calculate the eigenvectors is not presently available in a standard statistical package such as SAS or SPSS.
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