EVOKING INFORMATION IN PROBABILITY ASSESSMENT - KNOWLEDGE MAPS AND REASONING-BASED DIRECTED QUESTIONS

To assess probabilities in decision analysis, and for decision making in general, decision variety of structuring tools to aid decision make rs in these tasks, including influence diagrams and knowledge maps. Ho wever, despite their pervasive use in practice, there have been no rep orted empirical tests of these tools. One goal of the present research was to provide an empirical test of the evocative knowledge map metho dology. Second, a theoretical analysis of probability assessment was u sed to develop a new prescriptive elicitation technique. This techniqu e uses a theoretically-grounded set of directed questions to help deci sion makers evoke information for probability assessment. Experimental results showed that both the knowledge map and the new directed quest ions methodology elicited a higher quantity and quality of information from decision makers engaged in probability assessment tasks than did a control condition. Further, the information elicited by the two tec hniques was qualitatively different, suggesting that the two methods m ight profitably be used as complementary elicitation techniques.