IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eca/wpaper/2013-159867.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Strategic Sophistication and Attention in Games: an Eye-Tracking Study

Author

Listed:
  • Luca Polonio
  • Sibilla Di Guida
  • Giorgio Coricelli

Abstract

We used eye-tracking to measure the dynamic patterns of visual information acquisition in twoplayers normal form games. Participants played one-shot games in which either, neither, or only oneof the players had a dominant strategy. First, we performed a mixture models cluster analysis to groupparticipants into types according to the pattern of visual information acquisition observed in a singleclass of games. Then, we predicted agents’ choices in different classes of games, and observed thatpatterns of visual information acquisition were game invariant. Our method allowed us to predictwhether the decision process would lead to equilibrium choices or not, and to attribute out-ofequilibriumresponses to limited cognitive capacities or social motives. Our results suggest theexistence of individually heterogeneous-but stable-patterns of visual information acquisition basedon subjective levels of strategic sophistication and social preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Luca Polonio & Sibilla Di Guida & Giorgio Coricelli, 2014. "Strategic Sophistication and Attention in Games: an Eye-Tracking Study," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2014-22, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    • Handle: RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/159867
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/159867/1/2014-22-POLONIO_DIGUIDA_CORICELLI-strategic.pdf
    File Function: 2014-22-POLONIO_DIGUIDA_CORICELLI-strategic
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel T. Knoepfle & Joseph Tao-yi Wang & Colin F. Camerer, 2009. "Studying Learning in Games Using Eye-Tracking," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 388-398, 04-05.
    2. 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.
    3. Amos Arieli & Yaniv Ben-Ami & Ariel Rubinstein, 2011. "Tracking Decision Makers under Uncertainty," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 68-76, November.
    4. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    5. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    6. Nagel, Rosemarie, 1995. "Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1313-1326, December.
    7. James C. Cox & Daniel Friedman & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2008. "Revealed Altruism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(1), pages 31-69, January.
    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. Elena Reutskaja & Rosemarie Nagel & Colin F. Camerer & Antonio Rangel, 2011. "Search Dynamics in Consumer Choice under Time Pressure: An Eye-Tracking Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 900-926, April.
    10. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    11. Vincent P. Crawford, 2003. "Lying for Strategic Advantage: Rational and Boundedly Rational Misrepresentation of Intentions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 133-149, March.
    12. Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Aldo Rustichini, 2012. "Social Decision Theory: Choosing within and between Groups," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1591-1636.
    13. Bhatt, Meghana & Camerer, Colin F., 2005. "Self-referential thinking and equilibrium as states of mind in games: fMRI evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 424-459, August.
    14. Kirchsteiger, Georg, 1994. "The role of envy in ultimatum games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 373-389, December.
    15. 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.
    16. Joseph Tao-yi Wang & Michael Spezio & Colin F. Camerer, 2010. "Pinocchio's Pupil: Using Eyetracking and Pupil Dilation to Understand Truth Telling and Deception in Sender-Receiver Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 984-1007, June.
    17. 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.
    18. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1999. "Experience from a Course in Game Theory: Pre- and Postclass Problem Sets as a Didactic Device," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 155-170, July.
    19. Fraley C. & Raftery A.E., 2002. "Model-Based Clustering, Discriminant Analysis, and Density Estimation," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 97, pages 611-631, June.
    20. Stahl, Dale II & Wilson, Paul W., 1994. "Experimental evidence on players' models of other players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 309-327, December.
    21. Andreas Glöckner & Tilmann Betsch, 2008. "Multiple-Reason Decision Making Based on Automatic Processing," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2008_12, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    22. 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.
    23. 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.
    24. Johnson, Eric J. & Camerer, Colin & Sen, Sankar & Rymon, Talia, 2002. "Detecting Failures of Backward Induction: Monitoring Information Search in Sequential Bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 16-47, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Polonio, Luca & Coricelli, Giorgio, 2019. "Testing the level of consistency between choices and beliefs in games using eye-tracking," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 566-586.
    3. Despoina Alempaki & Andrew M. Colman & Felix Kölle & Graham Loomes & Briony D. Pulford, 2022. "Investigating the failure to best respond in experimental games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(2), pages 656-679, April.
    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. Bayer, Ralph C. & Renou, Ludovic, 2016. "Logical omniscience at the laboratory," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 41-49.
    6. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. 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.
    8. Vincent P. Crawford & Nagore Iriberri, 2004. "Fatal Attraction: Focality, Naivete, and Sophistication in Experimental Hide-and-Seek Games," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000316, UCLA Department of Economics.
    9. 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.
    10. Stahl, Dale O. & Haruvy, Ernan, 2008. "Level-n bounded rationality in two-player two-stage games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 41-61, January.
    11. Joshua Zonca & Giorgio Coricelli & Luca Polonio, 2019. "Does exposure to alternative decision rules change gaze patterns and behavioral strategies in games?," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(1), pages 14-25, August.
    12. Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2011. "Cognitive load in the multi-player prisoner's dilemma game," MPRA Paper 30856, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Breitmoser, Yves & Tan, Jonathan H.W. & Zizzo, Daniel John, 2014. "On the beliefs off the path: Equilibrium refinement due to quantal response and level-k," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 102-125.
    16. 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.
    17. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2010. "Strategic Thinking," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000001148, David K. Levine.
    18. García-Pola, Bernardo & Iriberri, Nagore & Kovářík, Jaromír, 2020. "Non-equilibrium play in centipede games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 391-433.
    19. Dufwenberg, Martin & Sundaram, Ramya & Butler, David J., 2010. "Epiphany in the Game of 21," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 132-143, August.
    20. Ellingsen, Tore & Östling, Robert & Wengström, Erik, 2018. "How does communication affect beliefs in one-shot games with complete information?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 153-181.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    game theory; strategic sophistication; social preferences; attention; eye-tracking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • C71 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Cooperative Games
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C83 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Survey Methods; Sampling Methods

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:eca:wpaper:2013/159867. 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: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/arulbbe.html .

    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.