The processing of numerical uncertainty associated with the components of if then rules: experiments with human subjects

The authors present the results of an experiment that was conducted to explore how individuals interpret and manipulate uncertainty in basic logical operations. Results indicate that the commonly used models are not as universally appropriate as has been assumed. These results have implications for the process of knowledge acquisition, the design of the system/user interface, and general issues of system development. Collecting information to construct an expert system, duplicating reasoning by using an expert system, and displaying results to decision makers require an understanding of how people actually reason with and use uncertain information