Computing with words and decision making

This special issue encompasses five papers devoted to the recent developments in the field of Computing with Words and Decision Making. The issue originated from presentations at the “8th International FLINS Conference on Computational Intelligence in Decision and Control” that was held in Madrid, Spain, September 21–24th, 2008. Every paper for the special issue was reviewed by at least two referees and finally five papers were accepted according to the referees’ evaluations. This special issue is focused in Computing with Words and Decision Making. The submissions include two review and position papers on Computing with Words and Perceptual Computing. The first paper, “Historical Reflections and New Positions on Perceptual Computing”, by Mendel, traces the historical origins of perceptual computing. It also takes the position that interval type-2 fuzzy sets, and not type-1 fuzzy sets, should be used in perceptual computing. Finally, it proposes some testable guidelines for when a solution (e.g., perceptual computing) may be branded computing with words. The second paper, “Computing with Words in Decision Making: Foundations, Trends and Prospects”, reviews how the Computing with Words methodology has been used in the Decision Making field to create and enrich decision models in which the information that is provided and manipulated has a qualitative nature. Herrera et al. present an overview of the Computing with Words methodology and they