Correspondence Analysis: A Neglected Multivariate Method

Abstract

R. A. Fisher's canonical analysis of contingency tables is shown to be applicable to incidence data as well as to contingency tables, and is accordingly designated by another author's name “correspondence analysis”. In a theoretical section, the method is shown to be equivalent to a special case of Hotelling's canonical correlation analysis and also to a scale‐free variant of principal components analysis. A practical example is examined, and a number of practical considerations discussed.