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Download the Paper (638 K, PDF file) - September 1, 2004 Tell a colleague about it. Printing Tips: Select 'print as image' in the Acrobat print dialog if you have trouble printing.

ABSTRACT:
This paper reports experiments that elicit subjects' initial responses to 16 dominance-solvable two-person guessing games. The structure is publicly announced except for varying payoff parameters, to which subjects are given free access, game by game, through an interface that records their information searches. Varying the parameters allows strong separation of the behavior implied by leading decision rules and makes monitoring search a powerful tool for studying cognition. Many subjects' decisions and searches show clearly that they understand the games and seek to maximize their payoffs, but have boundedly rational models of others' decisions, which lead to systematic deviations from equilibrium.

SUGGESTED CITATION:
Miguel A. Costa-Gomes and Vincent P. Crawford, "Cognition and Behavior in Two-Person Guessing Games: An Experimental Study" (September 1, 2004). Department of Economics, UCSD. Paper 2004-11.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucsdecon/2004-11