Modeling teams of specialists

Often, complex decisions must be made by a group of specialists rather than a single decision maker. To make an effective decision, the combination of the group´s expertise must be brought to bear on the situation. Fusing expertise where individuals have very detailed knowledge in their own areas and much weaker understanding of others is characterized by difficulties: agents cannot communicate their expertise in an intelligible way to non-experts because of differences in vocabulary and conceptual content; the process allows for incorrect inferences; and no one knows what anyone else needs to know. Measures and models developed for single agent decision making do not address the complications posed by the fusion of heterogeneous expertise nor the resource limitations which must be considered in evaluating group decisions. We propose the Team of Specialists (TOS) group decision model which partitions agents´ knowledge into expert and naive models to address these inadequacies. TOS models group decision making as a process of model refinement linking communications among agents to modifications of the naive portions of their models. The TOS model gives both a normative reference for evaluating group decisions and a characterization of the process by which they evolve. The model of process and criterion for ordering outcomes provided by TOS are the essential prerequisites for devising decision aids.<>