The theory of belief functions, also referred to as evidence theory or
Dempster–Shafer theory (
DST), is a general framework for reasoning with uncertainty, with understood connections to other frameworks such as probability, possibility and imprecise probability theories. First introduced by
Arthur P. Dempster in the context of statistical inference, the theory was later developed by Glenn Shafer into a general framework for modeling epistemic uncertainty - a mathematical theory of
evidence. The theory allows one to combine evidence from different sources and arrive at a degree of belief (represented by a mathematical object called
belief function) that takes into account all the available evidence.