A Cognitive Style and Aggregation Operator Model: a Linguistic Approach for Classification and Selection of the Aggregation Operators

Aggregation operators (AOs) have been studied by many scholars. As many AOs are proposed, there is still lacking approach to classify the categories of AO, and to select the appropriate AO within the AO candidates. In this research, each AO can be regarded as a cognitive style or individual difference. A Cognitive Style and Aggregation Operator (CSAO) model is proposed to analyze the mapping relationship between the aggregation operators and the cognitive styles represented by the decision attitudes. Four algorithms are proposed for CSAO: CSAO-1, CSAO-2 and two selection strategies on the basis of CSAO-1 and CSAO-2. The numerical examples illustrate how the choice of the aggregation operators on the basis of the decision attitudes can be determined by the selection strategies of CSAO-1 and CSAO-2. The CSAO model can be applied to decision making systems with the selection problems of the appropriate aggregation operators with consideration of the cognitive styles of the decision makers.