Visualizing main effects and interaction in multiple non-symmetric correspondence analysis

Abstract

Non-symmetric correspondence analysis (NSCA) is a useful technique for analysing a two-way contingency table. Frequently, the predictor variables are more than one; in this paper, we consider two categorical variables as predictor variables and one response variable. Interaction represents the joint effects of predictor variables on the response variable. When interaction is present, the interpretation of the main effects is incomplete or misleading. To separate the main effects and the interaction term, we introduce a method that, starting from the coordinates of multiple NSCA and using a two-way analysis of variance without interaction, allows a better interpretation of the impact of the predictor variable on the response variable. The proposed method has been applied on a well-known three-way contingency table proposed by Bockenholt and Bockenholt in which they cross-classify subjects by person's attitude towards abortion, number of years of education and religion. We analyse the case where the variables education and religion influence a person's attitude towards abortion.