How Utility Influences Repeated Mental Simulations of Lotteries - Yunxiao Li

A fundamental question in the study of risk and uncertainty is how individuals mentally represent probabilities. Growing evidence suggests that people rely on mental simulations to evaluate risky events. However, when risky events involve explicit utilities, it remains unclear how these utilities influence the probabilities with which outcomes are mentally sampled. We have addressed these questions through a series of four experiments that enable us to disentangle competing hypotheses, including Neutrality, Optimism, Pessimism, and Centralisation Polarisation.

The Spotlight Small Grant supported my participation at the SPUDM (Subjective Probability, Utility, and Decision Making) Conference 2025, where I delivered a 15-minute talk presenting the findings of my project. This provided an opportunity to disseminate my research to an international audience of scholars in decision-making and related fields. The activities were carried out as planned, with no major changes from the original proposal.

During the conference, I connected with researchers in economics from several European universities, which allowed me to gain insights into the differences in perspectives between psychology and economics. In particular, as my project revealed individual differences in the influence of utility, one researcher suggested that these differences might relate to personal traits. She has developed a new questionnaire on optimism, opening the possibility of a collaboration that links random generation results with individual trait measures.

Approximately 40–50 people attended my talk at SPUDM 2025. The audience included PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty members from psychology, economics, and behavioural science departments across European and international universities.