From Knowledge to Trust: A Logical Framework for Pre-trust Computations

Computational trust is the digital counterpart of the human notion of trust as applied in social systems. Its main purpose is to improve the reliability of interactions in online communities and of knowledge transfer in information management systems. Trust models are typically composed of two parts: a trust computing part and a trust manipulation part. The former serves the purpose of gathering relevant information and then use it to compute initial trust values; the latter takes the initial trust values as granted and manipulates them for specific purposes, like, e.g., aggregation and propagation of trust, which are at the base of a notion of reputation. While trust manipulation is widely studied, very little attention is paid to the trust computing part. In this paper, we propose a formal language with which we can reason about knowledge, trust and their interaction. Specifically, in this setting it is possible to put into direct dependence possessed knowledge with values estimating trust, distrust, and uncertainty, which can then be used to feed any trust manipulation component of computational trust models.