Configural frequency analysis

Configural frequency analysis (Lienert, 1969) is a method of explorative data analysis. The goal of a configural frequency analysis (short CFA) is to detect patterns in the data that occur significantly more (such patterns are called Types) or significantly less often (such patterns are called Anti-Types) 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.