Résumé
Qualitative and comparative preference statements of the form “prefer α to β” are useful components of many applications. This statement leads to the comparison of two sets of alternatives: the set of alternatives in which α is true and the set of alternatives in which β is true. Different ways are possible to compare two sets of objects leading to what is commonly known as preference semantics. The choice of the semantics to employ is important as they differently rank-order alternatives. Existing semantics are based on philosophical and non-monotonic reasoning grounds. In the meanwhile, they have been widely and mainly investigated by AI researchers from algorithmic point of view. In this paper, we come to this problem from a new angle and complete existing theoretical investigations of the semantics. In particular, we provide a comparison of the semantics on the basis of their psychological plausibility by evaluating their closeness to human behavior.