Analysis of Competing Hypothesesusing Subjective Logic

Intelligence analysis is a complicated task that requires a high degree of analytical judgement under conditions of considerable uncertainty. This judgement is used to fill in the gaps in knowledge and is the analyst’s principal means of managing uncertainty. Much of intelligence analysis includes judging the relevance and the value of evidence to determine the likelihood of competing hypotheses. The challenge is to create better formal methods of analysis that can be used under a wider variety of circumstances and which can handle both empirical data and formally-expressed beliefs as evidence for or against each hypothesis. The authors have developed a formal approach to the evaluation of competing hypotheses that is based on the belief calculus known as Subjective Logic. The development of this formal approach allows for integration of empirical and statistical data, as well as for judgements made by analysts. Lastly, this formal approach makes redundant the separate analysis of “diagnosticity of evidence”. Under this formal approach, diagnosticity is formally derived from the model and need not be considered as a separate input to the model, except as a means of limiting the initial set of evidence that should be formally considered.