Judgmental-knowledge bases: Problem solving and expert systems

Abstract

This paper describes the representation and use of judgmental-knowledge as applied in the experimental development of a general problem solver and an expert system. Human judgments on the degree to which objects are important to processes, (solution methods,) are factored analyzed and formed into a judgment space of orthogonal vectors. This space is consulted, in the case of the problem solver, to choose a solution method based on the attributes of the available objects. The result is a system which decides "how" to solve a problem in much the same way a person would. In the expert system the attributes of a patient are combined to form a diagnosis. The problem solved is an extension of the monkey and bananas problem and expert system provides a diagnosis for thyroid diseases. Examples and experimental results are also given.