Loss Function - Loss Functions in Bayesian Statistics

Loss Functions in Bayesian Statistics

One of the consequences of Bayesian inference is that in addition to experimental data, the loss function does not in itself wholly determine a decision. What is important is the relationship between the loss function and the prior probability. So it is possible to have two different loss functions which lead to the same decision when the prior probability distributions associated with each compensate for the details of each loss function.

Combining the three elements of the prior probability, the data, and the loss function then allows decisions to be based on maximizing the subjective expected utility, a concept introduced by Leonard J. Savage.

Read more about this topic:  Loss Function

Famous quotes containing the words loss, functions and/or statistics:

    “Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life—its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness—conjoin to dull our sensory faculties.”
    —Susan Sontag (b. 1933)

    “Let us stop being afraid. Of our own thoughts, our own minds. Of madness, our own or others’. Stop being afraid of the mind itself, its astonishing functions and fandangos, its complications and simplifications, the wonderful operation of its machinery—more wonderful because it is not machinery at all or predictable.”
    —Kate Millett (b. 1934)

    “July 4. Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.”
    —Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)