---
title: "Minimum Cross-Entropy Reasoning: A Statistical Justification"
authors:
  - "Manfred Jaeger"
doi: ""
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1995/237"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1995/0237.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 1995
pages: "1847-1851"
track: "Reasoning Under Uncertainty"
keywords:
---

# Minimum Cross-Entropy Reasoning: A Statistical Justification

Manfred Jaeger

*Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 1847-1851.

## Abstract

Degrees of belief are formed using observed evidence and statistical background information. In this paper we examine the process of how prior degrees of belief derived from the evidence are combined with statistical data to form more specific degrees of belief. A statistical model for this process then is shown to vindicate the cross-entropy minimization principle as a rule for probabilistic default-inference.