Optimal decision rules for simple hypothesis testing under general criterion involving error probabilities

Date
2020
Advisor
Instructor
Source Title
IEEE Signal Processing Letters
Print ISSN
1070-9908
Electronic ISSN
Publisher
IEEE
Volume
27
Issue
Pages
261 - 265
Language
English
Type
Article
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract

The problem of simple M-ary hypothesis testing under a generic performance criterion that depends on arbitrary functions of error probabilities is considered. Using results from convex analysis, it is proved that an optimal decision rule can be characterized as a randomization among at most two deterministic decision rules, each of the form reminiscent to Bayes rule, if the boundary points corresponding to each rule have zero probability under each hypothesis. Otherwise, a randomization among at most M(M-1)+1 deterministic decision rules is sufficient. The form of the deterministic decision rules are explicitly specified. Likelihood ratios are shown to be sufficient statistics. Classical performance measures including Bayesian, minimax, Neyman-Pearson, generalized Neyman-Pearson, restricted Bayesian, and prospect theory based approaches are all covered under the proposed formulation. A numerical example is presented for prospect theory based binary hypothesis testing.

Course
Other identifiers
Book Title
Keywords
Hypothesis testing, Optimal tests, Convexity, Likelihood ratio, Randomization
Citation
Published Version (Please cite this version)