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Correspondence Analysis
Correspondence analysis is a descriptive/exploratory
technique designed to analyse simple two-way and
multi-way tables containing some measure of
correspondence between the rows and columns.
The results provide information which is similar in
nature to those produced by Factor Analysis
techniques, and they allow one to explore the structure
of categorical variables included in the table. The most
common kind of table of this type is the two-way
frequency cross-tabulation table.
Sunday, 22 June 2014 8:40 AM
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Correspondence Analysis
Correspondence analysis (CA) may be defined as a
special case of principal components analysis (PCA) of
the rows and columns of a table, especially applicable
to a cross-tabulation. However CA and PCA are used
under different circumstances. Principal components
analysis is used for tables consisting of continuous
measurement, whereas correspondence analysis is
applied to contingency tables (i.e. cross-tabulations).
Its primary goal is to transform a table of numerical
information into a graphical display, in which each row
and each column is depicted as a point.
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Correspondence Analysis
In a typical correspondence analysis, a cross-tabulation
table of frequencies is first standardised, so that the
relative frequencies across all cells sum to 1.0.
One way to state the goal of a typical analysis is to
represent the entries in the table of relative
frequencies in terms of the distances between
individual rows and/or columns in a low-dimensional
space.
There are several parallels in interpretation between
correspondence analysis and factor analysis.


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Correspondence Analysis
Correspondence Analysis Applied to Psychological
Research.

L. Doey and J. Kurta

Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology
2011, Vol. 7(1), p. 5-14.

Paper
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Correspondence Analysis
An Introduction to Correspondence Analysis

P.M. Yelland

The Mathematica Journal 2010, Vol. 12, p. 1-23.

Paper
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Correspondence Analysis
The data summarises individuals political
affiliation (1,,5) and geographic region (1,,4) .
1 Liberal
2 Tend Lib
3 Moderate
4 Tend Cons
5 Conservative
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Correspondence Analysis
The data summarises individuals political
affiliation (1,,5) and geographic region (1,,4) .
1 Northeast
2 Midwest
3 South
4 West
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Correspondence Analysis
The data (a) summarises individuals political
affiliation (1,,5) and geographic region (1,,4) .
725 rows
of data
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Correspondence Analysis
Analyze > Dimension Reduction > Correspondence Analysis
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Correspondence Analysis
Select row/column variables. And define the ranges.
Having defined the ranges. Use the buttons at the
side of the screen to set desired parameters.
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Correspondence Analysis
Define Row Range. Select row bound, Update and
then Continue
There are 4 regions.
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Correspondence Analysis
Define Column Range. Select column bound,
Update and then Continue
There are 5 political affiliations.
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Correspondence Analysis
Finally
Use the buttons at the side of the screen to set
desired parameters.
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Correspondence Analysis
Select Statistics
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Correspondence Analysis
Select Plots
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Correspondence Analysis
Finally use the OK button to run the analysis
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Correspondence Analysis
The Correspondence Table is simply the cross-
tabulation of the row and column variables,
including the row and column marginal totals,
serving as input.
Cor respondence Table
19 23 58 16 15 131
26 31 71 47 35 210
18 27 75 46 70 236
30 19 40 26 33 148
93 100 244 135 153 725
Region
Northeast
Midwest
South
West
Active Margin
Liberal Tend Lib Moderate Tend Cons Conservative Active Margin
Political Outlook
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Correspondence Analysis
The Row Profiles are the cell contents divided by their
corresponding row total (eg. 19/131=0.145 for the first
cell). This table also shows the column masses (column
marginals as a percent of n) (eg. 93/725=0.128). These
are intermediate calculations on the way toward
computing distances between points. Note the column
of 1s.

Row Profiles
.145 .176 .443 .122 .115 1.000
.124 .148 .338 .224 .167 1.000
.076 .114 .318 .195 .297 1.000
.203 .128 .270 .176 .223 1.000
.128 .138 .337 .186 .211
Region
Northeast
Midwest
South
West
Mass
Liberal Tend Lib Moderate Tend Cons Conservative Active Margin
Political Outlook
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Correspondence Analysis
Column Profiles are the cell elements divided by
the column marginals (ex. 19/103=0.204). This
table also shows the row masses (row marginals as
a percent of n) (ex. 131/725=0.181). These are
intermediate calculations on the way toward
computing distances between points. Note the row
of 1s.
Column Profiles
.204 .230 .238 .119 .098 .181
.280 .310 .291 .348 .229 .290
.194 .270 .307 .341 .458 .326
.323 .190 .164 .193 .216 .204
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
Region
Northeast
Midwest
South
West
Active Margin
Liberal Tend Lib Moderate Tend Cons Conservative Mass
Political Outlook
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Correspondence Analysis
In the Summary table, we first look at the
chi-square value and see that it is significant,
justifying the assumption that the two
variables are related.
Summary
.189 .036 .627 .627 .035 -.043
.124 .015 .268 .895 .040
.078 .006 .105 1.000
.057 41.489 .000
a
1.000 1.000
Dimension
1
2
3
Total
Singular
Value Inertia Chi Square Sig. Accounted f or Cumulative
Proportion of Inertia
Standard
Deviation 2
Correlation
Conf idence Singular
Value
12 degrees of f reedom
a.
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Correspondence Analysis
SPSS has computed the interpoint distances and
subjected the distance matrix to principal
components analysis, yielding in this case three
dimensions.
Summary
.189 .036 .627 .627 .035 -.043
.124 .015 .268 .895 .040
.078 .006 .105 1.000
.057 41.489 .000
a
1.000 1.000
Dimension
1
2
3
Total
Singular
Value Inertia Chi Square Sig. Accounted f or Cumulative
Proportion of Inertia
Standard
Deviation 2
Correlation
Conf idence Singular
Value
12 degrees of f reedom
a.
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Correspondence Analysis
Only the interpretable dimensions are reported, not the
full solution, which is why the eigen values add to
something less than 100% (labelled Inertia; these are the
percent of variance explained by each dimension) - in this
case only 0.057 = 5.7%. This reflects the fact that the
correlation between region and political outlook, while
significant, is weak.
Summary
.189 .036 .627 .627 .035 -.043
.124 .015 .268 .895 .040
.078 .006 .105 1.000
.057 41.489 .000
a
1.000 1.000
Dimension
1
2
3
Total
Singular
Value Inertia Chi Square Sig. Accounted f or Cumulative
Proportion of Inertia
Standard
Deviation 2
Correlation
Conf idence Singular
Value
12 degrees of f reedom
a.
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Correspondence Analysis
The eigen values (called inertia here) reflect the relative
importance of each dimension, with the first always being
the most important, the next second most important, etc.
Summary
.189 .036 .627 .627 .035 -.043
.124 .015 .268 .895 .040
.078 .006 .105 1.000
.057 41.489 .000
a
1.000 1.000
Dimension
1
2
3
Total
Singular
Value Inertia Chi Square Sig. Accounted f or Cumulative
Proportion of Inertia
Standard
Deviation 2
Correlation
Conf idence Singular
Value
12 degrees of f reedom
a.
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Correspondence Analysis
The singular values are simply the square roots of the
eigen values. They are interpreted as the maximum
canonical correlation between the categories of the
variables in analysis for any given dimension.
Summary
.189 .036 .627 .627 .035 -.043
.124 .015 .268 .895 .040
.078 .006 .105 1.000
.057 41.489 .000
a
1.000 1.000
Dimension
1
2
3
Total
Singular
Value Inertia Chi Square Sig. Accounted f or Cumulative
Proportion of Inertia
Standard
Deviation 2
Correlation
Conf idence Singular
Value
12 degrees of f reedom
a.
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Correspondence Analysis
Note that the "Proportion of Inertia" columns are the
dimension eigen values divided by the total (table) eigen
value. That is, they are the percent of variance each
dimension explains of the variance explained: thus the
first dimension explains 62.7% of the 5.7% of the
variance explained by the model.
Summary
.189 .036 .627 .627 .035 -.043
.124 .015 .268 .895 .040
.078 .006 .105 1.000
.057 41.489 .000
a
1.000 1.000
Dimension
1
2
3
Total
Singular
Value Inertia Chi Square Sig. Accounted f or Cumulative
Proportion of Inertia
Standard
Deviation 2
Correlation
Conf idence Singular
Value
12 degrees of f reedom
a.
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Correspondence Analysis
The standard deviation columns refer back to the singular
values and helps the researcher assess the relative
precision of each dimension.
Summary
.189 .036 .627 .627 .035 -.043
.124 .015 .268 .895 .040
.078 .006 .105 1.000
.057 41.489 .000
a
1.000 1.000
Dimension
1
2
3
Total
Singular
Value Inertia Chi Square Sig. Accounted f or Cumulative
Proportion of Inertia
Standard
Deviation 2
Correlation
Conf idence Singular
Value
12 degrees of f reedom
a.
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Correspondence Analysis
The Overview Row Points table, for each row point in the
correspondence table, displays the mass, scores in
dimension, inertia, contribution of the point to the inertia
of the dimension, and contribution of the dimension to
the inertia of the point.
Overview Row Points
a
.181 -.702 .309 .020 .470 .139 .832 .105 .938
.290 -.130 .065 .005 .026 .010 .181 .030 .210
.326 .540 .194 .020 .501 .099 .901 .076 .977
.204 -.055 -.675 .012 .003 .752 .010 .970 .979
1.000 .057 1.000 1.000
Region
Northeast
Midwest
South
West
Active Total
Mass 1 2
Score in Dimension
Inertia 1 2
Of Point to Inertia of
Dimension
1 2 Total
Of Dimension to Inertia of Point
Contribution
Symmetrical normalization
a.
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Correspondence Analysis
Keyword interpretations

Mass: the marginal proportions of the row variable, used
to weight the point profiles when computing point
distance. This weighting has the effect of compensating
for unequal numbers of cases.

Scores in dimension: scores used as coordinates for
points when plotting the correspondence map. Each point
has a score on each dimension.

Inertia: Variance
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Correspondence Analysis
Contribution of points to dimensions: as factor loadings
are used in conventional factor analysis to ascribe
meaning to dimensions, so "contribution of points to
dimensions" is used to intuit the meaning of
correspondence dimensions.

Contribution of dimensions to points: these are multiple
correlations, which reflect how well the principal
components model is explaining any given point (category).

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Correspondence Analysis
The Overview Column Points table is similar to the
previous one, except for the column variable (party
rather than region) in the correspondence table.

Overview Column Points
a
.128 -.491 -.800 .016 .163 .663 .363 .630 .993
.138 -.351 .124 .003 .090 .017 .921 .075 .995
.337 -.252 .334 .009 .113 .303 .448 .512 .960
.186 .237 -.037 .006 .055 .002 .308 .005 .313
.211 .721 -.094 .022 .579 .015 .940 .010 .950
1.000 .057 1.000 1.000
Political Outlook
Liberal
Tend Lib
Moderate
Tend Cons
Conservative
Active Total
Mass 1 2
Score in Dimension
Inertia 1 2
Of Point to Inertia of
Dimension
1 2 Total
Of Dimension to Inertia of Point
Contribution
Symmetrical normalization
a.
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Correspondence Analysis
The Confidence Row Points tables display the standard
deviations of the row scores (the values used as
coordinates to plot the correspondence map) and are used
to assess their precision.

Confidence Row Points
.190 .307 .528
.169 .323 .066
.122 .206 -.685
.339 .148 -.026
Region
Northeast
Midwest
South
West
1 2
Standard Deviation in
Dimension
1-2
Correlation
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Correspondence Analysis
The Confidence Column Points tables display the standard
deviations of the column scores (the values used as
coordinates to plot the correspondence map) and are used
to assess their precision.

Confidence Column Points
.387 .221 -.694
.072 .117 .801
.171 .122 .575
.215 .406 .095
.127 .302 .304
Political Outlook
Liberal
Tend Lib
Moderate
Tend Cons
Conservative
1 2
Standard Deviation in
Dimension
1-2
Correlation
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Correspondence Analysis
The plots of transformed categories for dimensions
display a plot of the transformation of the row category
values and of column category values into scores in
dimension, with one plot per dimension.

The x-axis has the category values and the y-axis has the
corresponding dimension scores. Thus the category
"Northeast" in the Overview Row Points table above had a
score in dimension of -0.702, as shown on the plot.
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Correspondence Analysis
Refer back to Overview Row Points dimension 1
Why join!
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Correspondence Analysis
Refer back to Overview Row Points dimension 2
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Correspondence Analysis
Refer back to Overview Column Points dimension 1
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Correspondence Analysis
Refer back to Overview Column Points dimension 2
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Correspondence Analysis
The uniplots for the row and column variables. Note that
the origin of the axes is slightly different in the two
plots.
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Correspondence Analysis
Refer back to Overview Row Points dimensions 1 & 2
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Correspondence Analysis
Refer back to Overview Column Points dimensions 1 & 2
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Correspondence Analysis
Finally the biplot correspondence map is obtained.

Note the axes now encompass the most extreme values of
both of the uniplots.

Note that while some generalizations can be made about
the association of categories (South more conservative,
West more liberal). The researcher must keep firmly in
mind that correspondence is not association. That is, the
researcher should not allow the maps display of inter-
category distances to obscure the fact that, for this
example, the model only explains 5.7% of the variance in
the correspondence table.
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Correspondence Analysis
Refer back to Overview Row Points dimensions 1 & 2
and Overview Column Points dimensions 1 & 2.
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Correspondence Analysis
Care must be taken when interpreting the previous
plot. It must be remembered that distances between
columns and rows are not defined.
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Correspondence Analysis
Input Of A Collated Data Matrix

An SPSS program that will do this operation is
ANACOR, although since we are using data in table
form, this has to be performed using command syntax.
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Correspondence Analysis
The data (b) editor looks like
It contains the collated data matrix.

Note that we have only the matrix of interest in this view.
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Correspondence Analysis
You must employ the syntax

Either via File > Open > Syntax
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Correspondence Analysis
With the prepared commands in an ascii file
ANACOR TABLE= ALL (5 , 4)
/DIMENSION = 2
/NORMALIZATION = canonical
/VARIANCES= COLUMNS
/PLOT =NDIM (1 , 2)

Note the command "ALL" since we are providing the table

Note "5" for the number of rows

Note "4" for the number of columns
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Correspondence Analysis
Or via File > New > Syntax
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Correspondence Analysis
With the commands input into the Syntax Editor
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Correspondence Analysis
The solution is, of course, unchanged.
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SPSS Tips
Now you should go and try for yourself.

Each week our cluster (5.05) is booked for 2 hours
after this session. This will enable you to come and
go as you please.

Obviously other timetabled sessions for this module
take precedence..