Abstract: As an effective tool for knowledge representation reasoning and soft computing method, fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) has become a hot issue for researchers home and abroad in recent years. FCM quantifies the causal relationship between concepts. We summarized the basic framework and reasoning mechanism of FCM from the perspective of research development, generalized classification of FCM in the mainstream research and analyzed main features of its learning algorithm and put forward possibilities of future research, expecting to be helpful to the future research.

Key words: Fuzzy cognitive map, Causal relationship, Reasoning mechanism, Learning algorithm