personal equation

American  

noun

1. the tendency to personal bias that accounts for variation in interpretation or approach and for which allowance must be made.

---

personal equation British  

noun

1. the variation or error in observation or judgment caused by individual characteristics

2. the allowance made for such variation

---

Etymology

Origin of personal equation

First recorded in 1835–45

Example Sentences

There are experimentalists, like Picasso, and those who, like Braque, discover their personal equation and go on repeating it.

From Time Magazine Archive

Relations between the U.S. and Europe are complicated by the personal equation.

From Time Magazine Archive

The fact is that, with Dean Hole as with many others, the personal equation is operative.

From The Best Psychic Stories by Various

In the latter the personal equation, the skill and the loving, workmanlike fidelity of the individual toiler to his task impart a quality which dead mechanism can neither create nor supersede.

From Lace, Its Origin and History by Goldenberg, Samuel L.

Every investigator necessarily has his personal equation or point of view.

From Following the Color Line an account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy by Grayson, David