Virtual observability in sequential play

When players make sequential decisions that are unobservable to one another, their behavior can nonetheless be influenced by knowing who moves first. This sequential structure, often referred to as “virtual observability,” suggests that timing alone can shape expectations and choices, even when no information is revealed. The original notion of virtual observability, however, is an equilibrium refinement based on the timing structure and has no bite in games with unique equilibria. To study whether timing may still matter in such environments, we introduce General Virtual Observability (GVO) as a conceptual framework that extends the intuition of virtual observability beyond equilibrium selection. Guided by this framework, we experimentally examine whether the timing of unobserved moves affects behavior in two games with unique Nash equilibria: the Traveler’s Dilemma and the Trust Game. We find that in the sequential Traveler’s Dilemma without observability, first movers behave closer to the Nash equilibrium prediction than in the simultaneous version, whereas timing without observability has no effect on behavior in the Trust Game.