Please mark your calendars and plan
to attend the C4I
Seminar Series on Friday, Jan 10, from 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm in the
Engineering
Building, room 4705. Dr. Kenneth C. Olson discusses
“Probabilistic Coherence
Weighting for Improving Expert Forecasts.” For further
information contact Deb
Schenaker, (703) 993-3682, email: [log in to unmask], or visit
our website c4i.gmu.edu.
ABSTRACT
Methods for eliciting and aggregating expert judgment are
necessary when
decision-relevant data are scarce. This presentation addresses
how multiple
related individual judgments can be used to improve aggregation
of
probabilities for a binary event across a set of judges. The
work extends
previous efforts that use probabilistic incoherence of an
individual’s
subjective probability judgments to weight and aggregate the
judgments of
multiple forecasters for the goal of increasing the accuracy of
forecasts. Data
from two studies demonstrate good practice for eliciting extra
probability
judgments that allow adjustment of the judgments and assignment
of weights to
the judgments. The methods result in improvement of more than
30% over the
established benchmark of a simple, equal-weighted averaging of
judgments.
SPEAKER INFORMATION
Kenneth C. Olson is a research assistant professor in the
Volgenau School of
Engineering at George Mason University.
He earned his Ph.D. in quantitative psychology from The
Ohio State
University and completed a fellowship with the Intelligence
Community
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program. He is most
knowledgeable about
social, cognitive, and motor processes in decision making and
has extensive
experience educating both the public and professionals on common
judgment
errors. His teaching and research provide statistical modeling
tools to
non-statisticians, including work to develop a structured
analytic technique to
implement Bayesian networks for intelligence assessments. In 2013 he joined the
Center of Excellence in
C4I as a core researcher in a federally funded research project
called SciCast
to develop methods for improving the accuracy of science
forecasts.
-- Debra J. Schenaker C4I Center Admin, MSN 4B5 Volgenau School of Engineering 4400 University Drive Fairfax, VA 22030 (703) 993-3682 (p) (703) 993-1706 (f) [log in to unmask]