About: Configural frequency analysis

Configural frequency analysis (CFA) is a method of exploratory data analysis, introduced by in 1969. The goal of a configural frequency analysis is to detect patterns in the data that occur significantly more (such patterns are called Types) or significantly less often (such patterns are called Antitypes) than expected by chance. Thus, the idea of a CFA is to provide by the identified types and antitypes some insight into the structure of the data. Types are interpreted as concepts which are constituted by a pattern of variable values. Antitypes are interpreted as patterns of variable values that do in general not occur together.