A Novel Approach on Designing Augmented Fuzzy Cognitive Maps Using Fuzzified Decision Trees

This paper proposes a new methodology for designing Fuzzy Cognitive Maps using crisp decision trees that have been fuzzified. Fuzzy cognitive map is a knowledge-based technique that works as an artificial cognitive network inheriting the main aspects of cognitive maps and artificial neural networks. Decision trees, in the other hand, are well known intelligent techniques that extract rules from both symbolic and numeric data. Fuzzy theoretical techniques are used to fuzzify crisp decision trees in order to soften decision boundaries at decision nodes inherent in this type of trees. Comparisons between crisp decision trees and the fuzzified decision trees suggest that the later fuzzy tree is significantly more robust and produces a more balanced decision making. The approach proposed in this paper could incorporate any type of fuzzy decision trees. Through this methodology, new linguistic weights were determined in FCM model, thus producing augmented FCM tool. The framework is consisted of a new fuzzy algorithm to generate linguistic weights that describe the cause-effect relationships among the concepts of the FCM model, from induced fuzzy decision trees.