Recognizing and Countering Biases in Intelligence Analysis with TIACRITIS

This paper discusses different biases which have been identified in Intelligence Analysis and how TIACRITIS, a knowledge-based cognitive assistant for evidence-based hypotheses analysis, can help recognize and partially counter them. After reviewing the architecture of TIACRITIS, the paper shows how it helps recognize and counter many of the analysts’ biases in the evaluation of evidence, in the perception of cause and effect, in the estimation of probabilities, and in the retrospective evaluation of intelligence reports. Then the paper introduces three other types of bias that are rarely discussed, biases of the sources of testimonial evidence, biases in the chain of custody of evidence, and biases of the consumers of intelligence, which can also be recognized and countered with TIACRITIS. Bias, cognitive assistant, intelligence analysis, evidence-based reasoning, argumentation, symbolic probabilities.