I'd go a little further. There is no model underlying PCA. It's a
transformation procedure! I've done some stupid things with it myself,
so blame all round.
Verkuilen, Jay
Nick Cox wrote:
>>Please say if you are using factor analysis or principal component
analysis.
Agreed.
>>For many people, if not all, these are quite distinct techniques,
despite the relations between them.
I fall in the "quite distinct techniques" camp: There are superficial
similarities between factor analysis (particularly the "old school"
1960s version of it) and PCA but the underlying models are markedly
different. (Note that I'm most definitely not defending the many
stupidities committed by users of FA over the years.)
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
