Ranking the Impact of Different Tests on a Hypothesis in a Bayesian Network

Testing of evidence in criminal cases can be limited by temporal or financial constraints or by the fact that certain tests may be mutually exclusive, so choosing the tests that will have maximal impact on the final result is essential. In this paper, we assume that a main hypothesis, evidence for i...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Leila Schneps, Richard Overill, David Lagnado
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2018-11-01
Series:Entropy
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/20/11/856
Description
Summary:Testing of evidence in criminal cases can be limited by temporal or financial constraints or by the fact that certain tests may be mutually exclusive, so choosing the tests that will have maximal impact on the final result is essential. In this paper, we assume that a main hypothesis, evidence for it and possible tests for existence of this evidence are represented in the form of a Bayesian network, and use three different methods to measure the impact of a test on the main hypothesis. We illustrate the methods by applying them to an actual digital crime case provided by the Hong Kong police. We conclude that the Kullback⁻Leibler divergence is the optimal method for selecting the tests with the highest impact.
ISSN:1099-4300