Game matrices and trees can be hard to interpret and reason about. This is not only true for people who may be new to game theory (like young experiment participants), but even for those familiar with it. It normally isn't a problem because most lab experiments focus on one or two familiar games and can explain them with arbitrarily great care. But it could be a problem for experiments that use unfamiliar games or that expose participants to many different games in a session.
One way around this is to use practice rounds to give participants experience with the various outcomes, but, additionally, there must be a general intuitive approach to the materials that can present simple games in a way that highlights their different contingencies and incentives.
At present, for a 2x2 game, I imagine I'd use the classic game matrix supplemented with some equivalent textual description: "If you select strategy Left, the other player will either select Top (earning each of you 1 and 4, respectively) or Bottom (earning each of you 2 and 2, respectively). If you select strategy Right ...." But even that isn't so clear, and it wouldn't scale well to larger games; I'm sure there's a better way.
Is anyone familiar with research that tests, or at least uses, some unconventional intuitive format for visually communicating the different outcomes of a range of economic games? Without resorting to "cover story" narratives?
Hi,
I think it's hard to give an opinion without actually seeing what you're trying to achieve.
I'm not sure if it's a possibility but if the players lack understanding about a game (assuming they've never played it before) you can try using visual analogues to stimulate fast comprehension.
An example are cards. In most cultures cards games are well known (even if that person is not a card player). It will be probably much easier for them to recognize an outcome based on a cross (between two players) of cards than with an abstract number cross. Although the difference is strictly visual the fact remains that people will more likely remember something familiar (for a fast example try solving kids math with roman numerals or simple sorting exercises, you'll probably take much longer).
Depending on your purpose you may want to consider different analogues: chess, battleship (board game), monopoly, throw the coin, rock-paper-scissors, rock-paper-scissors-spock-lizard (just joking:p), etc. For your particular example something with binary choices would would probably work best (throw the coin).
If still this is not a possibility you can always try familiar notions (less culture biased) like colors (and the mixture between two colors) or well know symbols (like stop an go).
Please notice that I'm far from an expert in the area. I did make (and do) development for UI but largely for concepts such as "what is a button?" and "what is just a display?" by working with shapes, coloring and textures.
In any case I hope it helps. If I come across any relevant information I'll post it here.
I think you need to dive more into Game Theory, it may be I am not quite grasping what you are searching for. But in the case that I understand you are searching for (which I am confident I do), your answer lies within the theory.
Do the work, or consult a junior employee for advice.
Andrew, with all due respect, your comment was borderline rude.
The question Seth posted here seems to me relevant and only marginally related to "Game Theory" (which does not appear in the tags of the question although it exists in Research Gate).
The question is related with human-machine interface (thus the tags: "Computer Games", "User Interface Design", "Visual Communication") which is a thematic I'm also interested. In fact I'm curious about the opinions of other colleagues working or thinking about the same subjects.
Although I don't see it as rude, I want Seth to know it wasn't intended that way. To me it seemed as (and still does) that Seth has not explored the problem in depth enough.
Thank you, gentleman, for your input.
Pedro, Andy is right that this question is about game theory — I didn't give any thought to the tags, but this is a slightly boring methodological question for people like me who design laboratory experiments that test the mathematical predictions of economic game theory.
Andy, it's OK to be rude if that's your style, but only as long as you stick to it. When you backpedal you come off like a sycophant.
Seth, again I didn't intend to be rude. I imagine you found your answer. If you still didn't find an adequate answer I'm open for an internship; too much? I actually didn't know what a sycophant was as the behavior never crossed my mind.
Hi Seth,
In my experience the biggest problem with normal-form games in experiments is that subjects get confused about their own and the payoffs of others.
I have used a split screen in the past, where you have a table for your payoffs and for the payoff on one side and the payoffs for your opponent on the other side. This helps to make sure that people don't get confused about the matrix notation. This seems to work reasonably well. Using structural estimation methods we only have found a very small fraction of subjects behaving randomly (like a so-called level 0 type in hierarchical models of bounded rationality).
Another option is to use different colours for the payoffs of the player and the opponent. One could also divide the cells in the matrix (as done in many first-year textbooks) in two triangles with a diagonal line. Then all payoffs above the diagonal are the payoffs of one person and below the diagonal those of the other. Additional shading further helps.
Control questions are also helpful. (Like: What is your opponents payoff, if you play X and she plays Z) You can then program popup windows for people who get it wrong and as again until they get it right.
I hope this helps
Thank you Ralph. I'm mostly familiar with cutting each cell with those diagonal lines, and I was imagining using different colors for each player and administering comprehension questions. But the idea of representing each game with a separate matrix for each player is new to me and I'll play around with it. Obviously the graphic design of normal-form games is nothing to get too caught up in, but given the sensitivity of all this to learning and other effects, it's worth being at least a little intentional about how to present these things to participants. So thanks.
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