What are these axises obtained from PCA?

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I'd like suggestions as for what these questions have in common (all questions should be viewed as formulated in the "aspie-way").

Axis 1:
- Do you notice small sounds that others don't, or feel pained by loud or irritating noise?
- Do you tend to get so absorbed by your special interests that you forget or ignore everything else?
- Do you get confused by verbal instructions - especially several at the same time?
- Do you find it difficult to figure out how to behave in various situations?
- Do you dislike or have difficulty with team sports and other group endeavours?
- Have you felt different from others for most of your life?
- Does it feel vitally important to be left undisturbed when focusing on your special interests?
- Do you tend to express your feelings in ways that may baffle others?
- Do others often misunderstand you?
- In conversations, do you have trouble with things like timing and reciprocity?
- Do you forget you are in a social situation when something gets your attention?
- Do you tend to interpret things literally and/or reply to rhetorical questions?

Axis 2:
High positive loadings:
- Are you hypo- or hypersensitive to physical pain, or even enjoy some types of pain?
- Do you have a hyperactive mind?
- Do you take an interest in, and remember, details that others do not seem to notice?
- Do you tend to be impatient and/or impulsive?
- Have you taken initiative only to find out it was not wanted?
- Do you have a fascination for slowly flowing water?
- Have you experienced stronger than normal attachments to certain people?
- Do you enjoy watching a spinning or blinking object?
- In conversations, do you use small sounds that others don't seem to use?
- Do you rock back-&-forth or side-to-side (e.g. for comfort, to calm yourself, when excited or overstimulated)?
- Do you have a habit of repeating your own or others' last words, internally or out loud (echolalia)?
- Do you clench your fists when angry?

High negative loadings:
- Have you had more difficulties than others making friends?
- Are you good at teamwork?
- Do you find yourself at ease in romantic situations?
- Do you feel uncomfortable with strangers?
- Do you find the usual courting behavior natural?
- Do you find it easy to maintain your social network?
- Do you enjoy meeting new people?
- Are you good at social chitchat?
- Do you welcome a surprise, even if it means being taken off task?
- Do you have a tendency to be passive and not initiate things yourself?
- Do you find it easy to describe your feelings?
- Do you find it natural to wave or say 'hi' when you meet people?
- Do your friends mean more to you than hobbies and interests?
- Have you felt kinship and belonging to others for most of your life?
- Is a large social network important to you?
- Do you have a good sense for what is the right thing to do socially?
- Do you find it easy to 'read between the lines' when someone is talking to you?
- Do you find it easy to understand what someone is thinking or feeling just by looking at their face?
- Can you easily keep track of several different people's conversations?
- Does it feel natural for you to say 'thank you' and 'sorry'?
- Do you enjoy team sport and group endeavours?

Axis 3:

high positive loadings:
- Do you notice small sounds that others don't, or feel pained by loud or irritating noise?
- Are your eyes extra sensitive to stong light and glare?
- Are you affected negatively by high air humidity combined with hot weather?
- Do you get very tired after socializing, and need to regenerate alone?
- Have you felt different from others for most of your life?
- Do you feel stressed in unfamiliar situations?
- Do you feel uncomfortable with strangers?
- Do you dislike it when people drop by to visit you uninvited?
- Do you tend to shut down or have a meltdown when stressed or overwhelmed?
- Before doing something or going somewhere, do you need to have a picture in your mind of what's going to happen so as to be able to prepare yourself mentally first?
- Do you become frustrated if an activity that is important to you gets interrupted?
- Do you have difficulty accepting criticism, correction, and direction?
- Do you find it disturbing or upsetting when others show up either later or sooner than agreed?
- Are you prone to getting depressions?
- Do you easily blush?
- Do you enjoy team sport and group endeavours?

High negative loadings:
- Do you have a poor sense of how much pressure to apply when doing things with your hands?
- Do you find it easy to describe your feelings?
- Do you tend to say things that are considered socially inappropriate?
- Do people sometimes think you are smiling at the wrong occasion?
- Do you have an odd posture or gait?
- In conversations, do you have trouble with things like timing and reciprocity?
- Do you forget you are in a social situation when something gets your attention?
- Do you tend to interpret things literally and/or reply to rhetorical questions?
- Are you usually unaware of social rules & boundaries unless they are clearly spelled out?
- Do you have difficulties judging unseen limits and other people's personal space unless clearly informed?
- Do you have a good sense for what is the right thing to do socially?
- Do you instinctively know when it is your turn to speak when talking on the phone?
- Is being honest so natural to you that you often don't notice - or care - if others may find your remarks inappropriate, hurtful or rude?
- Do you know when you are expected to offer an apology?
- Do you find it easy to 'read between the lines' when someone is talking to you?
- Do you have problems recognizing faces (prosopagnosia)?
- Do you find it easy to understand what someone is thinking or feeling just by looking at their face?
- Does it feel natural for you to say 'thank you' and 'sorry'?
- Do you find it easy to estimate the age of people?

Axis 4:

High positive loadings:
- Do you have poor awareness or body control and a tendency to fall, stumble or bump into things?
- Do you have a poor sense of how much pressure to apply when doing things with your hands?
- Do you have difficulties judging distances, height, depth or speed?
- Do you have difficulties throwing and/or catching a ball?
- Do you get confused by verbal instructions - especially several at the same time?
- Do you have poor concept of time?
- Do you find it difficult to take notes in lectures?
- Do you find it hard to recognise phone numbers when said in a different way?
- Do you feel stressed in unfamiliar situations?
- Are you sometimes afraid in safe situations?
- Do you have a habit of repeating your own or others' last words, internally or out loud (echolalia)?
- Do you stutter when stressed?
- Do you easily blush?
- Do you have difficulty describing & summarising things for example events, conversations or something you've read?
- Do you find it hard to tell the age of people?
- Can you easily remember verbal instructions?

High negative loadings:
- Do you tend to get so absorbed by your special interests that you forget or ignore everything else?
- As a child, was your play more directed towards, for example, sorting, building, investigating or taking things apart than towards social games with other kids?
- Do you have values & views that are either very old-fashioned or way ahead of their time?
- Do you focus on one interest at a time and become an expert on that subject?
- Do you have unconventional ways of solving problems?
- Do you have a hyperactive mind?
- Do you notice patterns in things all the time?
- Do you take an interest in, and remember, details that others do not seem to notice?
- Do you feel an urge to correct people with accurate facts, numbers, spelling, grammar etc., when they get something wrong?
- Do tend to do everything worth doing, more perfect than really needed?
- Have you felt different from others for most of your life?
- Do you prefer to do things on your own even if you could use others' help or expertise?
- Do you find the usual courting behavior natural?
- Are you usually unaware of/disinterested in what is currently in vogue?
- Are your views typical of your peer group?
- Is your sense of humor different from mainstream or considered odd?
- Do you tend to say things that are considered socially inappropriate?
- Have you taken initiative only to find out it was not wanted?
- Is being honest so natural to you that you often don't notice - or care - if others may find your remarks inappropriate, hurtful or rude?

Axis 5:

High positive loadings:
- Do you get confused by verbal instructions - especially several at the same time?
- If there is an interruption, can you quickly return to what you were doing before?
- Do you find it very hard to learn things that you are not interested in?
- Are you easily distracted?
- Do you need lists and schedules in order to get things done?
- Do you tend to be impatient and/or impulsive?
- Do you tend to shut down or have a meltdown when stressed or overwhelmed?
- Have you taken initiative only to find out it was not wanted?
- Do you have difficulty accepting criticism, correction, and direction?
- Have you been bullied, abused or taken advantage of?
- Is it harder for you than for others to get over a failed relationship?
- Do you look, feel or act younger than your biological age?
- Are you often surprised what people's motives are ?
- Do you have difficulties filtering out background noise when talking to someone?
- Do you find it easy to 'read between the lines' when someone is talking to you?
- Can you easily keep track of several different people's conversations?
- Can you easily remember verbal instructions?
- Are you gracious about criticism, correction and direction?

High negative loadings:
- Do you dislike shaking hands?
- Do you prefer to avoid eye-contact?
- Do you feel uncomfortable with strangers?
- Do you enjoy meeting new people?
- Do you find it natural to wave or say 'hi' when you meet people?
- Do you have a fascination for slowly flowing water?
- Do you often don't know where to put your arms?
- Do you make unusual facial expressions?
- Do you have an odd posture or gait?
- Do you wring your hands, rub your hands together or twirl your fingers?
- Do you fiddle with things?
- Do you enjoy watching a spinning or blinking object?
- In conversations, do you use small sounds that others don't seem to use?
- Do you rock back-&-forth or side-to-side (e.g. for comfort, to calm yourself, when excited or overstimulated)?
- Do you tap your ears or press your eyes (e.g. when thinking, when stressed or distressed)?
- Do you bite your lip, cheek or tongue (e.g. when thinking, when anxious or nervous)?
- Do you stutter when stressed?

There are certainly identical questions in some axis, etc... but something defining a given one? I'm not sure I understand.

A yes answer on mot of the positive ones IS pretty aspie. I knocked off one point for each "no" I had:

Axis 1:-1
Axis 2:-3
Axis 3:-3
Axis 4:-5
Axis 5:-2

Of course, a few of the questions should be "no" if you are aspie, and I answered no to them. I didn't really look at the negative loaded ones.

I think I understand. You ran the quiz data through principal components analysis, and you came up with these axes. Now you are looking for a theme or name for each? Like when they run the demographic data through multivariate analysis and get a group of middle class women with 1.7 kids that live in the suburbs, and they call it the "Soccer Mom" group.

Can you post the factor loadings or eigenvectors? I know you said high positive, high negative, but maybe the numbers would help.

Ok, here are my impressions ...

Axis 1 - Core traits - the things most aspie-like (vs NT).

Axis 2 - Hyperactivity/Sociability dimension

Axis 3 - Hypersensitivity to stimuli dimension.

Axis 4 - Kinesthetic/Obsessive dimension

Axis 5 - Attention/Introversion dimension


How many people's data did you analyze for this?

Last edited by monty on 07 Sep 2007, 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

heres my axis

I guess I concur with this even though the redundancy and overlap is confusing.

Exactly. Actually, I manipulated the data slightly by inverting all the scores on questions that NTs answer higher on than Aspies. I also "centered" data in the PCA. If I don't do that, the usual Aspie-NT-g-axis will be the result. What I wanted was some sub-groupings of traits instead of the Aspie-NT dimension.[/quote]



I'll do a new report and sort questions on factor-loadings instead. I'll repost this next week (don't have time for it right now).



OK, sounds reasonable.



I used around 4700 answers from stable version 2 of Aspie-quiz

Eigenvalues:
Axis 1: 40.603
Axis 2: 4.401
Axis 3: 2.736
Axis 4: 2.550
Axis 5: 1.992

Explained variance:
Axis 1: 29.002%
Axis 2: 3.143%
Axis 3: 1.955%
Axis 4: 1.822%
Axis 5: 1.423%

The factor-loadings for the questions I listed early are all above 0.1 (or below -0.1). Highest loadings are around 0.2 to 0.3.

When I do the usual PCA, without data-centering and inverting NT scores, results are like this (stable version 1):

Eigenvalues:
Axis 1 (Aspie): 219.819
Axis 2 (NT): 21.931
Axis 3 (g): 3.407

Explained variance:
Axis 1: 64.933%
Axis 2: 6.478%
Axis 3: 1.006%

I think this looks an awfully lot like a personality-trait. I don't know how to describe it, but one side has high sensitivity and the other have assertiveness (acceptance of one's own quirks).

Here are the questions with above 0.2 or below -0.2 factor loadings:

Positive loadings:
- Do you dislike it when people drop by to visit you uninvited?

Negative loadings:
- Do you have difficulties judging unseen limits and other people's personal space unless clearly informed?