Decision Making as Pattern Recognition

Abstract

In this chapter we will follow up our idea that visual pattern recognition can serve as a metaphor for the understanding of human cognitive abilities. One typical problem confronting humans is decision making. This has to be done in our personal daily life, but also in economy and companies, especially by managers, and it is an important task in politics, and so on. When we analyse the problem of decision making more closely, we quickly find that there are a number of intrinsic difficulties, of which we mention a few. In general, the information we have about a problem on which we have to make a decision is incomplete. In mathematical terms, the problem is often ill-posed in a way that may be reminiscent of the problems we discussed in stereopsis. Quite often decision making has to be done in conflict situations. Each specific decision bears its own risks. The problem of decision making implies that, in general, there are multiple choices and a repertoire of actions. In studying these problems, both quantitative and qualitative methods have been applied and there is, of course, a considerable literature on decision making.