unfolding technique

n. A scaling procedure which differentiates between a subject's own preferences about a stimulus dimension and judgments about the relative position of stimuli along that dimension. In this technique subjects are asked to make relative comparisons of pairs of stimuli along a dimension as well as to select their own preference or ideal on that dimension. The subject's judgments about each stimulus are summed to give each a place on the dimension and the dimension folded at the subject's ideal point to produce a scale in which the subject's ideal is at one end and the two extremes of the original dimension are at or near the other end of this new individual preference dimension. This allows inferences about the relative preferences of subjects among stimuli not near each other on the original (joint) dimension. Also called the Coombs unfolding technique.