Learning, Experimentation, and Long-Run Behavior in Games

This paper investigates a class of population-learning dynamics. In every period agents either adopt a best reply to the current distribution of actual play, or a best reply to a sample, taken with replacement, from the distribution of intended play (the strategies adopted at the end of last period), or they are inactive. If sampling with replacement and being inactive have strictly positive probability, these dynamics converge globally to minimal curb sets in the absence of mistakes. For two-player i x j-games, i; j .le. 3; the same result holds even if only best responding to actual play and being inactive have positive probability. If players make mistakes in the implementation of their strategies, these dynamics select among minimal curb sets .

Review article

In eukaryotic cells, the trans-Golgi network (TGN) serves as a platform for secretory cargo sorting and trafficking. In recent years, it has become evident that a complex network of lipid-lipid and lipid-protein interactions contributes to these key functions. This review addresses the role of lipids at the TGN with a particular emphasis on sphingolipids and diacylglycerol. We further highlight how these lipids couple secretory cargo sorting and trafficking for spatiotemporal coordination of protein transport to the plasma membrane

Learning Strategic Sophistication

We experimentally investigate coordination games in which cognition plays an important role, i.e. where outcomes are affected by the agents level of understanding of the game and the beliefs they form about each others understanding.We ask whether and when repeated exposure permits agents to learn to improve cognition in a strategic setting.We find evidence for strategic sophistication being learned, generalized and promoted.Agents acquire strategic sophistication in simple settings.They may fail to do so in similar but more demanding settings.Given the opportunity, they transfer learning from the simple to the more demanding task.There is heterogeneity in sophistication.We find some evidence for sophisticated agents trying to spread sophistication early in the game, provided there is a long enough time horizon.noncooperative games;laboratory group behavior

A study of real-time computer graphic display technology for aeronautical applications

Hardware, algorithms and software for real-time raster graphics were designed and implemented

Cognition in Spatial Dispersion Games

In common-interest spatial-dispersion games the agents common goal is to choose distinct locations.We experimentally investigate the role of cognition in such games and compare it with the role of cognition in spatial matching games. In our setup cognition matters because agents may be differentially aware of the dispersion opportunities that are created by the history of the game.We ask whether cognitive constraints limit the agents ability to achieve dispersion and, if there is dispersion, whether these constraints affect the mode by which agents achieve dispersion.Our main finding is that strategic interaction magnifies the role of cognitive constraints.Specifically, with cognitive constraints, pairs of agents fail to solve a dispersion problem that poses little or no problem for individual agents playing against themselves.When we remove the cognitive constraints in our design, pairs of agents solve the same problem just as well as individuals do.In addition, we find that when playing against themselves agents do not change the mode by which they solve the dispersion problem when our design removes the cognitive constraints.noncooperative games;laboratory group behavior

Learning in sender-receiver games

game theory;learning;testing

Learning and Communication in Sender-Reciever Games: An Economic Investigation

This paper compares the performance of stimulus response (SR) and belief-based learning (BBL) using data from game theory experiments. The environment, extensive form games played in a population setting, is novel in the empirical literature on learning in games. Both the SR and BBL models fit the data reasonably well in common interest games with history while the test results accept SR and reject BBL in games with no history and in all but one of the divergent interest games. Estimation is challenging since the likelihood function is not globally concave and the results may be subject to convergence bias.econometrics;game theory and experiments

Pre-Play communication with forgone costly messages: experimental evidence on forward induction

We study communication in a two-player coordination game with Pareto-ranked equilibria. Prior research demonstrates that efficient coordination is difficult without communication but obtains regularly with (mandatory) costless pre-play messages. In a laboratory experiment, we modify communication by making the sending of messages optional and costly. Even small costs dramatically reduce message use, but efficient coordination of actions occurs with similar frequency to that observed under costless communication. Our results can be accounted for by Govindan and Wilson's formalization of forward induction (GW-FI), which selects, among the pure-strategy equilibrium outcomes, the one in which efficiency is achieved without communication. Consistent with the introspective character of GW-FI, the fraction of players who achieve efficient coordination by forgoing the use of reasonably costly optional messages is substantial from the first period, is remarkably stable at that level, and is not significantly affected by learning.Coordination, communication, forward induction, experiment, stag hunt