Validation of a Cognitive Map

A cognitive map is a knowledge representation model. Knowledge is represented as a graph where nodes represent concepts and arcs represent influences between these concepts. Each influence has a value that quantifies it. Despite the fact that a cognitive map is quite simple to build, some influence values may contradict each other. This paper provides some quality criteria in order to validate a cognitive map. There are two kinds of quality criteria. The verification validates a cognitive map by computing its internal coherency. The test validates a map from a set of constraints provided by the designer. These criteria indicate if a map does or does not contain contradictions. We also propose a way to adapt these criteria according to the possible values that an influence can take