On the determination of strength of belief for decision support under uncertainty—Part I: generating strengths of belief

The problem of decision making under uncertainty is described and the difficulty of comparing actions with uncertain outcomes is noted. We discuss the role of valuation functions which convert an uncertain outcome into a single representative value and hence aid in the comparison of uncertain alternatives. The need for information about the strength of belief that a given outcome will occur is pointed out. We then look at various methods for obtaining this information. We consider in particular detail the situation in which the strength of belief is dependent on the outcome payoff.