IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v111y2018icp143-158.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A window of cognition: Eyetracking the reasoning process in spatial beauty contest games

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Chun-Ting
  • Huang, Chen-Ying
  • Wang, Joseph Tao-yi

Abstract

We study the reasoning process in an environment where final choices are well understood and the associated theory is procedural by introducing two-person beauty contest games played spatially on two-dimensional grid maps. Players choose locations and are rewarded by hitting targets dependent on opponents' choice locations. By tracking subjects' eye movements (lookups), we infer their reasoning process and classify subjects into various levels. More than a half of the subjects' classifications coincides with their classifications using final choices, supporting a literal interpretation of the level-k model for subject's reasoning process. Lookup analyses reveal that the center area is where most subjects initially look at. This sheds light on the level-0 belief. Moreover, learning lookups of a trial on average could increase payoffs of that trial and eliminates roughly 60% of the gap to empirical best response, indicating how valuable lookups can help predict choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Chun-Ting & Huang, Chen-Ying & Wang, Joseph Tao-yi, 2018. "A window of cognition: Eyetracking the reasoning process in spatial beauty contest games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 143-158.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:111:y:2018:i:c:p:143-158
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2018.05.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825618300770
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2018.05.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stahl Dale O. & Wilson Paul W., 1995. "On Players' Models of Other Players: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 218-254, July.
    2. Marina Agranov & Andrew Caplin & Chloe Tergiman, 2015. "Naive play and the process of choice in guessing games," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(2), pages 146-157, December.
    3. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes, 2006. "Cognition and Behavior in Two-Person Guessing Games: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1737-1768, December.
    4. Vuong, Quang H, 1989. "Likelihood Ratio Tests for Model Selection and Non-nested Hypotheses," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 307-333, March.
    5. Costa-Gomes, Miguel & Crawford, Vincent P & Broseta, Bruno, 2001. "Cognition and Behavior in Normal-Form Games: An Experimental Study," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1193-1235, September.
    6. Georganas, Sotiris & Healy, Paul J. & Weber, Roberto A., 2015. "On the persistence of strategic sophistication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 369-400.
    7. Burchardi, Konrad B. & Penczynski, Stefan P., 2014. "Out of your mind: Eliciting individual reasoning in one shot games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 39-57.
    8. Ho, Teck-Hua & Camerer, Colin & Weigelt, Keith, 1998. "Iterated Dominance and Iterated Best Response in Experimental "p-Beauty Contests."," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 947-969, September.
    9. Arad, Ayala & Rubinstein, Ariel, 2012. "Multi-dimensional iterative reasoning in action: The case of the Colonel Blotto game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 571-585.
    10. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
    11. Nagel, Rosemarie, 1995. "Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1313-1326, December.
    12. Timothy C. Salmon, 2001. "An Evaluation of Econometric Models of Adaptive Learning," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1597-1628, November.
    13. Isabelle Brocas & Juan D. Carrillo & Stephanie W. Wang & Colin F. Camerer, 2014. "Imperfect Choice or Imperfect Attention? Understanding Strategic Thinking in Private Information Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(3), pages 944-970.
    14. Selten, Reinhard, 1991. "Properties of a measure of predictive success," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 153-167, April.
    15. Grosskopf, Brit & Nagel, Rosemarie, 2008. "The two-person beauty contest," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 93-99, January.
    16. Penczynski, Stefan P., 2016. "Strategic thinking: The influence of the game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 72-84.
    17. Colin F. Camerer & Teck-Hua Ho & Juin-Kuan Chong, 2004. "A Cognitive Hierarchy Model of Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 861-898.
    18. Teck-Hua Ho & Xuanming Su, 2013. "A Dynamic Level-k Model in Sequential Games," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(2), pages 452-469, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sean Duffy & J. J. Naddeo & David Owens & John Smith, 2024. "Cognitive Load and Mixed Strategies: On Brains and Minimax," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 26(03), pages 1-34, September.
    2. Polonio, Luca & Di Guida, Sibilla & Coricelli, Giorgio, 2015. "Strategic sophistication and attention in games: An eye-tracking study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 80-96.
    3. Healy, Paul J. & Park, Hyoeun, 2023. "Model selection accuracy in behavioral game theory: A simulation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    4. Georganas, Sotiris & Healy, Paul J. & Weber, Roberto A., 2015. "On the persistence of strategic sophistication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 369-400.
    5. Marchiori, Davide & Di Guida, Sibilla & Polonio, Luca, 2021. "Plasticity of strategic sophistication in interactive decision-making," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    6. Allred, Sarah & Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2016. "Cognitive load and strategic sophistication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 162-178.
    7. Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2014. "Cognitive load in the multi-player prisoner's dilemma game: Are there brains in games?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 47-56.
    8. Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2011. "Cognitive load in the multi-player prisoner's dilemma game," MPRA Paper 30856, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2010. "Strategic Thinking," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000001148, David K. Levine.
    10. Fiedler, Susann & Hillenbrand, Adrian, 2020. "Gain-loss framing in interdependent choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 232-251.
    11. Fischbacher, Urs & Hausfeld, Jan & Renerte, Baiba, 2022. "Strategic incentives undermine gaze as a signal of prosocial motives," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 63-91.
    12. Giovanna Devetag & Sibilla Guida & Luca Polonio, 2016. "An eye-tracking study of feature-based choice in one-shot games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(1), pages 177-201, March.
    13. Brocas, Isabelle & Carrillo, Juan D., 2020. "The evolution of choice and learning in the two-person beauty contest game from kindergarten to adulthood," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 132-143.
    14. Müller, Julia & Schwieren, Christiane, 2011. "More than Meets the Eye: an Eye-tracking Experiment on the Beauty Contest Game," Working Papers 0516, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    15. Wei James Chen & Meng-Jhang Fong & Po-Hsuan Lin, 2023. "Measuring Higher-Order Rationality with Belief Control," Papers 2309.07427, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nagel, Rosemarie & Bühren, Christoph & Frank, Björn, 2017. "Inspired and inspiring: Hervé Moulin and the discovery of the beauty contest game," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 191-207.
    2. Georganas, Sotiris & Healy, Paul J. & Weber, Roberto A., 2015. "On the persistence of strategic sophistication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 369-400.
    3. Wanqun Zhao, 2020. "Cost of Reasoning and Strategic Sophistication," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-27, September.
    4. Tong, Hanh T. & Freeman, David J., 2021. "Anchors of strategic reasoning in the traveler’s dilemma," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 28-38.
    5. Ye Jin, 2021. "Does level-k behavior imply level-k thinking?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 330-353, March.
    6. Alaoui, Larbi & Janezic, Katharina A. & Penta, Antonio, 2020. "Reasoning about others' reasoning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    7. Penczynski, Stefan P., 2017. "The nature of social learning: Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 148-165.
    8. Berger, Ulrich & De Silva, Hannelore & Fellner-Röhling, Gerlinde, 2016. "Cognitive hierarchies in the minimizer game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 337-348.
    9. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Johannes Buckenmaier, 2021. "Cognitive sophistication and deliberation times," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 558-592, June.
    10. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2010. "Strategic Thinking," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000001148, David K. Levine.
    11. Allred, Sarah & Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2016. "Cognitive load and strategic sophistication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 162-178.
    12. J. Hausfeld & K. von Hesler & S. Goldlücke, 2021. "Strategic gaze: an interactive eye-tracking study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 177-205, March.
    13. Dietmar Fehr & Steffen Huck, 2016. "Who knows it is a game? On strategic awareness and cognitive ability," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 713-726, December.
    14. Wright, James R. & Leyton-Brown, Kevin, 2017. "Predicting human behavior in unrepeated, simultaneous-move games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 16-37.
    15. Bayer, R.-C. & Renou, Ludovic, 2016. "Logical abilities and behavior in strategic-form games," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 39-59.
    16. Teck-Hua Ho & So-Eun Park & Xuanming Su, 2021. "A Bayesian Level- k Model in n -Person Games," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1622-1638, March.
    17. Strzalecki, Tomasz, 2014. "Depth of reasoning and higher order beliefs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 108-122.
    18. Choo, Lawrence C.Y & Kaplan, Todd R., 2014. "Explaining Behavior in the "11-20" Game," MPRA Paper 52808, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Shapiro, Dmitry & Shi, Xianwen & Zillante, Artie, 2014. "Level-k reasoning in a generalized beauty contest," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 308-329.
    20. Healy, Paul J. & Park, Hyoeun, 2023. "Model selection accuracy in behavioral game theory: A simulation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Beauty contest game; Level-k model; Best response hierarchy; Guessing game; Cognitive hierarchy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D87 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Neuroeconomics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:111:y:2018:i:c:p:143-158. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.