Reasoning With Conditional Ceteris Paribus Preference Statem

TL;DR

This paper introduces a graphical method for representing qualitative preferences with conditional dependencies, enabling efficient dominance testing especially in certain network structures, enhancing decision-making tools.

Contribution

It presents a novel graphical representation of preferences reflecting conditional independence and dependence, along with effective search algorithms for dominance testing.

Findings

Algorithms are effective in chain and tree-structured networks.

Representation is compact and natural for qualitative preferences.

Performance improves in specific network topologies.

Abstract

In many domains it is desirable to assess the preferences of users in a qualitative rather than quantitative way. Such representations of qualitative preference orderings form an importnat component of automated decision tools. We propose a graphical representation of preferences that reflects conditional dependence and independence of preference statements under a ceteris paribus (all else being equal) interpretation. Such a representation is ofetn compact and arguably natural. We describe several search algorithms for dominance testing based on this representation; these algorithms are quite effective, especially in specific network topologies, such as chain-and tree- structured networks, as well as polytrees.