Computing with words in decision making: foundations, trends and prospects

Computing with Words (CW) methodology has been used in several different environments to narrow the differences between human reasoning and computing. As Decision Making is a typical human mental process, it seems natural to apply the CW methodology in order to create and enrich decision models in which the information that is provided and manipulated has a qualitative nature. In this paper we make a review of the developments of CW in decision making. We begin with an overview of the CW methodology and we explore different linguistic computational models that have been applied to the decision making field. Then we present an historical perspective of CW in decision making by examining the pioneer papers in the field along with its most recent applications. Finally, some current trends, open questions and prospects in the topic are pointed out.