Correlation coefficients of linguistic interval hesitant fuzzy sets and their application

To address the hesitancy, inconsistency and uncertainty of decision makers’ cognitions, linguistic interval hesitant fuzzy sets (LIHFSs) are efficient tools. This paper focuses on studying the application of LIHFSs. To do this, two correlation coefficients of LIHFSs are defined, which needn't consider the length of elements in LIHFSs or the arrangement of their possible interval values. To address the situation where the weights of elements in a set are different and correlative, two linguistic interval hesitant fuzzy Shapley weighted correlation coefficients are defined. Considering the situation where the weight information of features/attributes is partly known, programming models to determine the optimal fuzzy measures on them are constructed, respectively. After that, an approach to pattern recognition and multi-attribute decision making with linguistic interval hesitant fuzzy information is developed, respectively. Meanwhile, illustrative examples about medical diagnosis and selecting constructors for tunnel bidding are selected to verify the application of new approaches, and comparison with a previous method is offered.