Membership function (mathematics)

In mathematics, the membership function of a fuzzy set is a generalization of the indicator function for classical sets. In fuzzy logic, it represents the degree of truth as an extension of valuation. Degrees of truth are often confused with probabilities, although they are conceptually distinct, because fuzzy truth represents membership in vaguely defined sets, not likelihood of some event or condition. Membership functions were introduced by Aliasker Zadeh in the first paper on fuzzy sets (1965). Aliasker Zadeh, in his theory of fuzzy sets, proposed using a membership function (with a range covering the interval (0,1)) operating on the domain of all possible values.