A simple decision task in a social context: Experiments, a model, and preliminary analyses of behavioral data

A. Nedic, D. Tomlin, P. Holmes, D. A. Prentice, J. D. Cohen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

To investigate the influence of input from fellow group members in a constrained decision-making context, we consider a game in which subjects freely select one of two options (A or B), and are informed of the reward resulting from that choice following each trial. Rewards are computed based on the fraction × of past A choices by two functions fA (x), f B (x) (unknown to the subject) which intersect at a matching point x̄ that does not generally represent globally optimal behavior. Playing individually, subjects typically remain close to the matching point, although some discover the optimum. We investigate the effects of additional feedback regarding the choices and reward scores of other players. We generalize a drift-diffusion model, commonly used to model individual decision making, to incorporate feedback from other players, study the resulting coupled stochastic differential equations, and compare the distributions of choices that they predict with those produced by a pool of subjects playing in groups of five without feedback and with feedback on other players' choices.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 47th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2008
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages1115-1120
Number of pages6
ISBN (Print)9781424431243
DOIs
StatePublished - 2008
Event47th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2008 - Cancun, Mexico
Duration: Dec 9 2008Dec 11 2008

Publication series

NameProceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control
ISSN (Print)0743-1546
ISSN (Electronic)2576-2370

Other

Other47th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2008
Country/TerritoryMexico
CityCancun
Period12/9/0812/11/08

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Control and Optimization

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