pc_flip function

Flip PC loadings

The sign of the loadings and scores generated by PCA is arbitrary. Sometimes it is convenient to flip them so that all positive loadings/scores become negative (and vice versa). Sometimes one direction leads to a more natural interpretation. It is also useful when comparing the results of PCA across multiple data sets. This function will flip loadings and scores for PCA analyses carried out by the base R prcomp() and princomp() functions and for the pca_test() function from this package. If you specify only pc_no

you will flip the loadings and scores for that PC. You can also specify a variable which you would like to have a positive loading in the resulting PCA.

pc_flip(pca_obj, pc_no, flip_var = NULL)

Arguments

• pca_obj: The result of a call to prcomp(), princomp() or pca_test.
• pc_no: An integer, indicating which PC is to be flipped.
• flip_var: An optional name of a variable which will become positive in the PC indicated by pc_no.

Returns

An object matching the class of pca_obj with relevant PC modified.

Examples

pca_obj <- prcomp(onze_intercepts |> dplyr::select(-speaker), scale=TRUE)

  # flip the second PC
  flipped_pca <- pc_flip(pca_obj, pc_no = 2)

  # flip (if necessary) the third PC, so that the "F1_GOOSE" variable has
  # a positive loading
  flipped_pca <- pc_flip(pca_obj, pc_no = 3, flip_var = "F1_GOOSE")