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A Notion of Prominence for Games with Natural-Language Labels

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  • Alessandro Sontuoso

    (Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania)

  • Sudeep Bhatia

Abstract

We study games with natural-language labels (i.e., strategic problems where options are denoted by words), for which we propose and test a measurable characterization of prominence. We assume that – ceteris paribus – players find particularly prominent those strategies that are denoted by labels frequently used in everyday language: to operationalize this assumption, we suggest that the prominence of a strategy-label is correlated with its frequency of occurrence in large text corpora. In order to test for the strategic use of word frequency, we consider experimental games with different incentive structures (such as incentives to and not to coordinate), as well as subjects from different cultural/linguistic backgrounds. We find that frequently-mentioned labels are more (less) likely to be selected when there are incentives to match (mismatch) others. Furthermore, varying one’s knowledge of the others’ cultural background significantly affects one’s reliance on word frequency. Overall, our studies suggest that individuals select strategies that fulfill our characterization of prominence in a (boundedly) rational manner.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandro Sontuoso & Sudeep Bhatia, 2017. "A Notion of Prominence for Games with Natural-Language Labels," PPE Working Papers 0009, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised Nov 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:ppc:wpaper:0009
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    2. Gächter, Simon & Starmer, Chris & Thöni, Christian & Tufano, Fabio & Weber, Till O., 2022. "Social closeness can help, harm and be irrelevant in solving pure coordination problems," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    3. David Rojo Arjona & Stefania Sitzia & Jiwei Zheng, 2021. "Overcoming coordination failure in games with focal points," Working Papers 335109305, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    4. Rojo Arjona, David & Sitzia, Stefania & Zheng, Jiwei, 2022. "Overcoming coordination failure in games with focal points: An experimental investigation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 505-523.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    focal points; salience; coordination; hide-and-seek; level-k;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

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