ACH aims to help an analyst overcome, or at least minimize, some of the cognitive limitations that make prescient intelligence analysis so difficult to achieve.
Producing the best available information from uncertain data remains the goal of researchers, tool-builders, and analysts in industry, academia and government.
[3][4] Since deception often is the result of a cognitive trap, Elsaesser and Stech use state-based hierarchical plan recognition (see abductive reasoning) to generate causal explanations of observations.
According to social constructivist critics, ACH also fails to stress sufficiently (or to address as a method) the problematic nature of the initial formation of the hypotheses used to create its grid.
There is considerable evidence, for example, that in addition to any bureaucratic, psychological, or political biases that may affect hypothesis generation, there are also factors of culture and identity at work.
These socially constructed factors may restrict or pre-screen which hypotheses end up being considered, and then reinforce confirmation bias in those selected.