Decision Sciences Journal
Volume 32, Number 2
Spring 2001
An Empirical Study of Equivalence Judgments vs. Ratio Judgments
in Decision Analysis
Shih-Kung Lai
Center for Land Management and Technology, National Taipei University,
67, Section 3, Min Sheng East Road, Taipei, Taiwan, R. O. C.,
email: lai@mail.ntpu.edu.tw
Abstract. Two commonly used elicitation modes on strength
of preference, equivalence and ratio judgments, were compared
in an experiment. The result from the experiment showed that
ratio judgments were less effective than equivalence judgments.
Based on an iterative design for eliciting multiattribute preference
structures, equivalence judgments outperformed ratio judgments
in estimating single-attribute measurable value functions, while
being nearly more effective than ratio judgments in assessing
multiattribute preference structures. The implications of the
results from the experiment are that multiattribute decision-making
techniques should take advantage of the decision maker’s
inclination of making effective equivalence trade-off judgments,
and that useful techniques should be devised to incorporate different
commonly used techniques, such as multiattribute utility theory
and the Analytic Hierarchy Process, to elicit and consolidate
equivalence trade-off judgments.
Subject Areas: Group Decision-making Systems, Multiattribute
Utility Theory, Ratio and Equivalence Judgments, Risk, Strategic
Decision Making, and Strength of Preference. |