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.

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personal equation British  

noun

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

2. the allowance made for such variation

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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 relation between teachers and scholars is personal rather than official; and on both sides the personal equation often complicates the problem.

From Organizing and Building Up the Sunday School Modern Sunday School Manuals by Hurlbut, Jesse Lyman

In order that the personal equation may be allowed for, the present writer begs to affirm that he writes as a sympathetic student though not an adherent.

From Psychical Miscellanea Being Papers on Psychical Research, Telepathy, Hypnotism, Christian Science, etc. by Hill, J. Arthur

One must not forget the personal equation which enters into even accurate instrumental recording in medicine and surgery.

From Arteriosclerosis and Hypertension: with Chapters on Blood Pressure, 3rd Edition. by Warfield, Louis Marshall