Q-SpAM: How to Efficiently Measure Similarity in Online Research

Abstract

Measuring the similarity of stimuli is of great interest to a variety of social scientists. Spatial arrangement by dragging and dropping “more similar” targets closer together on the computer screen is a precise and efficient method to measure stimulus similarity. We present Qualtrics-spatial arrangement method (Q-SpAM), a feature-rich and user-friendly online version of spatial arrangement. Combined with crowdsourcing platforms, Q-SpAM provides fast and affordable access to similarity data even for large stimulus sets. Participants may spatially arrange up to 100 words or images, randomly selected targets, self-selected targets, self-generated targets, and targets self-marked in different colors. These and other Q-SpAM features can be combined. We exemplify how to collect, process, and visualize similarity data with Q-SpAM and provide R and Excel scripts to do so. We then illustrate Q-SpAM’s versatility for social science, concluding that Q-SpAM is a reliable and valid method to measure the similarity of lots of stimuli with little effort.

A Comparison of the Spatial Arrangement Method and the Total-Set Pairwise Rating Method for Obtaining Similarity Data in the Conceptual Domain

“…SpAM (Goldstone, 1994;Hout et al, 2013) is, however, increasingly being used, presumably because it allows similarity data to be obtained in a much faster manner than PRaM. As software to collect similarity data online through SpAM has recently become available in the form of JavaScript code implemented in the browser-based survey software Qualtrics (Koch et al, 2020), it is to be expected that the use of the method will only increase.…”

Research at a Distance: Replicating Semantic Differentiation Effects Using Remote Data Collection With Children Participants

“…Specifically, in the Spatial arrangement task, we tested the effect of pair type on the raw (i.e., non-averaged per participant) Euclidean distances between pairs of items. To account for differences in the space available to arrange the cards resulting from different sizes of browser windows, these pairwise distances were normalized (i.e., divided by the by the pixel length of the diagonal of the browser window; see Koch et al, 2020 for a similar approach). To examine whether using a larger browser window influenced children's likelihood of differentiating across or within domains, we included the size of the window in the models examining semantic differentiation.…”

“…Although prior work with adult participants has used computerized versions of the spatial arrangement method (e.g., Goldstone, 1994;Koch et al, 2020), the existing studies with children participants using this task asked children to organize physical cards on a game board (e.g., Fisher et al, 2015;Jenkins et al, 2015;Vales et al, 2020a,b). Thus, it remains an open question whether a computerized version of the spatial arrangement task would result in patterns of semantic differentiation similar to those observed in prior work.…”

“…The task was hosted in the Qualtrics platform by adapting the procedure developed by Koch et al (2020). The pixel width and height of the center of each item was recorded, as well as the pixel width and height available on each participant's screen; these coordinates were used to calculate the distance between all pairs of items on the screen and normalize them by each participant's maximum possible dissimilarity (i.e., the diagonal of the participant's screen).…”

Knowing who I am depends on who I've become: Linking self-concept clarity and temporal self-comparison

“…Confidence, for instance, could be modeled as the extent to which mouse movements waiver between options, as opposed to self-reported confidence about those me/not me judgments. Additionally, participants could be asked to generate features of their self-concepts, such as traits or values, before organizing those features in a multidimensional space according to their similarity (i.e., Spatial Arrangement; Koch et al, 2020). Data from these spatial arrangements could then be analyzed with network analyses and combined with self-reports to better understand how the structure of selfknowledge, which may not be completely accessible to individuals, is associated with the feeling of self-concept clarity.…”