An experimental procedure involving interaction between subject and computer was used to determine an opitmum subset of stimuli for multidimensional scaling (MDS). A computer program evaluated this procedure compared with MDS based on (a) all pairs of stimuli, and (b) on one-third of the possible pairs. The new method was better. (Author/HG)

It is argued that ordinal statistical methods are often more appropriate than their more common counterparts because conclusions will be unaffected by monotonic transformation of the variables; they are more statistically robust when used appropriately; and they often correspond more closely to the researcher's goals. (SLD)