A statistical viewpoint on the theory of evidence

Abstract

The authors provide a perspective and interpretation regarding the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence that regards the combination formulas as statistics of the opinions of experts. This is done by introducing spaces with binary operations that are simpler to interpret or simpler to implement than the standard combination formula, and showing that these spaces can be mapped homomorphically onto the Dempster-Shafer theory-of-evidence space. The experts in the space of opinions-of-experts combine information in a Bayesian fashion. Alternative spaces for the combination of evidence suggested by this viewpoint are presented.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>