There are two types of responses in Adams Insight:

A scalar response is a type of response which returns a single value of interest.

Response 01 = R_01 (f1, f2, f3, ... fn)

This function could be a linear or higher order function. The following example demonstrates a quadratic response with three factors. The Adams Insight Fit utility computes the constant and coefficients as follows:

where a is constant and b ... j are the coefficients.

A composite response consists of N number of scalar responses. When evaluated together, this group of scalar responses can produce a continuous representation of a measurement. A composite response enables you to reserve more than one column per response in the work space matrix. Traditionally you would expect one column per response in the work space matrix when responses represent a scalar value for each Trial. By altering the Columns field in the response attribute form you can reserve any number of additional columns. These Columns are then named <response abbr> (0), <response abbr> (1), <response abbr> (2), ... <response abbr> (n). Composite response member elements could be used to store polynomial representation of a curve by putting the constant and subsequent coefficients in the respective columns.

For example, the following composite response represents a cubic polynomial. A cubic polynomial consists of a constant and three coefficients; therefore, the four scalar responses. In this example, the four scalar responses are a function of three factors:

Now, if you vary x over a range, you can visualize the resulting curve.

This next example is a Composite Response representation of a quadratic polynomial. A quadratic polynomial consists of a constant and two coefficients; therefore, the need for three scalar responses. In this particular case, the composite response elements are dependent on six factors.