The elicitation and representation of pre-decisional behavior: an information processing approach

The aim of the work described was to develop a method of eliciting knowledge about the important components of a particular decision and to gain an understanding of the type of processing strategy used by the decision maker. The key requirement was that the knowledge could be represented in a mediating form which is intelligible to the reader and is amenable to simple analysis. Process tracing techniques provide a potential means of acquiring intelligence about the decision making process. An approach is described which provides a method which uses process tracing techniques to enable the acquisition and understanding of the pre-decisional behavior of the decision maker. This method can be used by knowledge engineers to provide a means of understanding choice processes in a multi-alternative decision making domain