A Quantitative Trust Model Based on Multiple Evaluation Criteria

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a quantitative computational trust model which takes into account multiple evaluation criteria and uses the recommendation from others in order to get the trust value for entities. In the proposed trust model, the trust for an entity is defined as the expectation for the entity to yield satisfactory outcomes in the given situation. Once an interaction has been made with an entity, it is assumed that outcomes are observed with respect to evaluation criteria. When the trust information is needed, the satisfaction degree, which is the probability to generate satisfactory outcomes for each evaluation criterion, is computed based on the outcome probability distributions and the entity’s preference degrees on the outcomes. Then, the satisfaction degrees for evaluation criteria are aggregated into a trust value. At that time, the reputation information is also incorporated into the trust value. This paper presents in detail how the trust model works.