An empirical comparison of Bayesian and credal combination operators

We are interested in whether or not representing and maintaining imprecision is beneficial when combining evidences from multiple sources. We perform two experiments that contain different levels of risk and where we measure the performance of the Bayesian and credal combination operators by using a simple score function that measures the informativeness of a reported decision set. We show that the Bayesian combination operator performed on centroids of operand credal sets outperforms the credal combination operator when no risk is involved in the decision problem. We also show that if a risk component is present in the decision problem, a simple cautious decision policy for the Bayesian combination operator can be constructed that outperforms the corresponding credal decision policy.