Expert Elicitation

Experts can help and inform researchers in the design of the experiments, the definition of the models, interpretation of the results and make reasonable and informed choices along all the research process. Thus, the collaboration between different experts is a crucial point and should be encouraged in any applied research field.

Within a Bayesian framework, experts can evaluate relevant information and help researchers in the definition of a plausible range of values and prior choices. In particular, when previous results are limited, expert knowledge is a valuable source of information and Elicitation can be used to define priors according to experts’ judgement. Elicitation is a structured procedure that allows experts to express, on the base of their experience in the field, their knowledge and uncertainty about quantities of interest in the form of probability distributions.

In my PhD project, I am working on the formalization of theoretical perspectives within attachment theory according to previous results in the literature and experts’ knowledge.