Game form recognition in preference elicitation, cognitive abilities and cognitive load

Abstract

This study further examines the failure of game form recognition in preference elicitation (Cason and Plott, 2014) by making elicitation more cognitively demanding through a cognitive load manipulation. We hypothesized that if subjects misperceive one game for another game, then by depleting their cognitive resources, subjects would misconceive the more-cognitively demanding task for the less-cognitively demanding task at a higher rate. We find no evidence that subjects suffer from a first-price-auction game-form misconception but rather that once cognitive resources are depleted, subjects' choices are better explained by random choice. More cognitively able subjects are more immune to deviations from sub-optimal play than lower cognitively able subjects