Challenges and open questions in soft consensus models

Abstract

Abstract-In group decision making problems, given the importance of obtaining an accepted solution by the whole group, the consensus has attained a great attention and it is virtually a major goal of these problems. Consensus, as traditionally meant to be a full and unanimous agreement, is often not reachable in practice. A more realistic approach is to use softer consensus measures, which assess the consensus degree in a more flexible way, and therefore reflect the large spectrum of possible partial agreements, guiding the consensus process until widespread agreement is achieved among experts. In particular, the interpretation of the consensus based on the concept of fuzzy majority has been used in the most of the consensus models proposed in the literature, as it is more human-consistent and suitable for reflecting human perceptions of the meaning of consensus. However, there are still some open questions to be addressed. In this paper, we are going to highlight some issues in order to focus researcher's attention on new problems that arise when using consensus models based on soft consensus measures in real-world applications.

Influence Analysis in Consensus Search — A Multi Criteria Group Decision Making Approach in Environmental Management

“…According to 30,31 and; 32 it is important to develop consensus models that take into account the weights of the experts (their importance) when adding their preferences but also advising how to change their preferences. The search for consensus as expressed by 33 presents challenges and open questions to be addressed in the following areas: (1) counseling, (2) models of consensus based on trust (3) visualization and verbalization of the process, (4) the importance of the experts, (5) dynamic contexts of decision, and (6) persuasion.…”

“… Importance of experts: According to 33 in group decision making, there are many situations where the expert knowledge is not equally important 34 . To model these situations the most common approach in the literature involves assigning a weight to the experts in the group.…”

“…According to 30,31 and; 32 it is important to develop consensus models that take into account the weights of the experts (their importance) when adding their preferences but also advising how to change their preferences. The search for consensus as expressed by 33 presents challenges and open questions to be addressed in the following areas: (1) counseling, (2) models of consensus based on trust (3) visualization and verbalization of the process, (4) the importance of the experts, (5) dynamic contexts of decision, and (6) persuasion.In this paper we will analyze consensus from the perspective of areas 4 and 6:  Importance of experts: According to 33 in group decision making, there are many situations where the expert knowledge is not equally important 34 . To model these situations the most common approach in the literature involves assigning a weight to the experts in the group.…”

Group consensus measurement in MADM with multiple preference formats

“…Integration is an important task in decision support process (Chiclana et al, 1998;Rao, 2008;Liu et al, 2010;Perçina and Kahramanb, 2010;Vu et al, 2014), as well as it does in group decision making process with preference information on alternatives (Cabrerizo et al, 2013;Chiclana et al, 2013). In group decision making process, multiple experts are always involved and express their preference information on alternatives in different formats due to different culture and education backgrounds, such as, fuzzy preference relations , pairwise comparison(Saaty, 2008, linguistics with different granularities (Mata, et al, 2009).…”

“…In addition to find the optimal solution to the MADM with multiple experts' preference information on alternatives, group consensus measurement is also an important issue in the process of decision making (Bryson, 1996;Kacpzrzyk et al, 1992;Herrera-Viedma et al, 2005;Mata et al, 2009;Xu and Cai, 2011;Chiclana et al, 2013;Cabrerizo et al, 2013).…”