Beyond fictitious play beliefs: Incorporating pattern recognition and similarity matching

Leonidas Spiliopoulos

Games and Economic Behavior, 2013, vol. 81, issue C, 69-85

Abstract: Belief models capable of detecting 2- to 5-period patterns in repeated games by matching the current historical context to similar realizations of past play are presented. The models are implemented in a cognitive framework, ACT-R, and vary in how they implement similarity-based categorization—using either an exemplar or a prototype approach. Empirical estimation is performed on the elicited-belief data from two experiments (Nyarko and Schotter, 2002; Rutström and Wilcox, 2009) using repeated games with a unique, albeit significantly different, stage mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium. Model comparisons are performed by cross-validation both within and between these two datasets, and using data from completely unrelated non-strategic tasks. Subjectsʼ beliefs are best described by 2-period pattern detection. Parameter estimates exhibited considerable instability across the two belief-elicitation datasets, and surprisingly, using median values from a wide variety of unrelated studies led to better predictions.

Keywords: Learning; Pattern recognition; Beliefs; Repeated games; Memory; Cognitive models; Behavioral game theory; ACT-R (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C52 C53 C70 C72 C73 C91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:81:y:2013:i:c:p:69-85

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2013.04.005

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