Visualization and quantitative research on intuitionistic fuzzy studies

Since proposed in 1983, the intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS) theory has grown immensely during the past decades and has wide application in machine learning, pattern recognition, management engineering and decision making. With the rapid development and widespread adoption of IFS, thousands of research results have been appeared, focusing on both theory development and practical applications. Given the large number of research materials exist, this paper intends to make a scientometric review on IFS studies to reveal the most cited papers, influential authors and influential journals in this domain based on the 1318 references retrieved from SCIE and SSCI databases via Web of science. The research results of this paper are based on the objective data analysis and they are less affected by subjective biases, which make them more reliable.