Cognition and Behavior in Normal-Form Games: An Experimental Study

Miguel A. Costa-Gomes, Vincent P. Crawford and Bruno Broseta

University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, UC San Diego

Abstract: This paper reports experiments designed to measure strategic sophistication, the extent to which players' behavior reflects attempts to predict others' decisions, taking their incentives into account. Subjects played normal-form games with various patterns of iterated dominance and unique pure-strategy equilibria without dominance, using a computer interface that allowed them to look up hidden payoffs as often as desired, one at a time, while automatically recording their look-ups. Monitoring information search allows tests of game theory's implications for cognition as well as decisions, and subjects' deviations from search patterns suggested by equilibrium analysis help to predict their deviations from equilibrium decisions.

* Harvard Business School

** University of Arizona

Date: 1998-09
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Related works:
Working Paper: Cognition and Behavior in Normal-Form Games: An Experimental Study (1998)
Working Paper: Cognition and Behavior in Normal-Form Games: An Experimental Study (2000)
Working Paper: Cognition and Behavior in Normal-Form Games:An Experimental Study
Journal Article: Cognition and Behavior in Normal-Form Games: An Experimental Study (2001)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdl:ucsdec:98-22

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