[3] Ennis [4] provides a comprehensive account of the derivation of Thurstonian models for a wide variety of behavioral tasks including preferential choice, ratings, triads, tetrads, dual pair, same-different and degree of difference, ranks, first-last choice, and applicability scoring.
In Chapter 10, a simple form for ranking tasks is presented that only involves the product of univariate normal distribution functions and includes rank-induced dependency parameters.
Chapter 6 links discrimination, identification and preferential choice through a common multivariate model in the form of weighted sums of central F distribution functions and allows a general variance-covariance matrix for the items.
The observed rankings are assumed to be derived from real-valued latent variables zij, representing the evaluation of option j by judge i.
Thurstonian models were introduced by Louis Leon Thurstone to describe the law of comparative judgment.
[3] This comment, however, only applies to ranking and Thurstonian models with a much broader range of applications were developed prior to 1999.
For instance, a multivariate Thurstonian model for preferential choice with a general variance-covariance structure is discussed in chapter 6 of Ennis (2016) that was based on papers published in 1993 and 1994.
Even earlier, a closed form for a Thurstonian multivariate model of similarity with arbitrary covariance matrices was published in 1988 as discussed in Chapter 7 of Ennis (2016).