The Internal Conflict of a Belief Function

In this paper we define and derive an internal conflict of a belief function. We decompose the belief function in question into a set of generalized simple support functions (GSSFs). Removing the single GSSF supporting the empty set we obtain the base of the belief function as the remaining GSSFs. Combining all GSSFs of the base set, we obtain a base belief function by definition. We define the conflict in Dempster’s rule of the combination of the base set as the internal conflict of the belief function. Previously the conflict of Dempster’s rule has been used as a distance measure only between consonant belief functions on a conceptual level modeling the disagreement between two sources. Using the internal conflict of a belief function we are able to extend this also to non-consonant belief functions.