How to Combine (Dis)Utilities of Different Aspects into a Single (Dis)Utility Value, and How This Is Related to Geometric Images of Happiness

Authors

Laxman Bokati, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Nguyen Hoang Phuong, Thang Long UniversityFollow
Olga Kosheleva, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Vladik Kreinovich, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

3-2020

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-20-20

To appear in Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics (JACIII)

Abstract

In many practical situations, a user needs our help in selecting the best out of a large number of alternatives. To be able to help, we need to understand the user's preferences. In decision theory, preferences are described by numerical values known as utilities. It is often not feasible to ask to user to provide utilities of all possible alternatives, so we must be able to estimate these utilities based on utilities of different aspects of these alternatives. In this paper, we provide a general formula for combining utilities of aspects into a single utility value. The resulting formula turns out to be in good accordance with the known correspondence between geometric images and different degrees of happiness.