In statistics, Procrustes analysis is a method used to attempt to match one configuration of points onto another, and describe how well they fit.
This analysis acquired its name because one data set is stretched, squashed and twisted until it resembles the second - as with Procrustes and his bed.
This technique can be used with multidimensional scaling to attempt to examine the relationship between, for example, similar data acquired from multiple sources, and appears to be frequently cited in papers related to examining the tastes of groups of people. However, it has a wide range of potential applications.
Useful paper references for this technique include Everitt and Rabe-Hesketh (1997) and Krzanowski (1988)