The Qualitative Verification of Quantitative Uncertainty

Qualitative methods for reasoning under uncertainty may be helpful in situations where quantification of uncertainty is not appropriate. We demonstrate another use for qualitative models. The qualitative analysis of a quantitative model of uncertainty will reveal the qualitative behaviour of that model when new evidence is obtained. This qualitative behaviour can be compared with the specifications to identify those situations in which the model does not behave as expected. We report the result of two experiments performed on a small fragment of a real test-bed by using a probability model, and a model based on the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence.