Cognitive Load in the Multi-Player Prisoner's Dilemma Game: Are There Brains in Games?

Abstract

We …nd that di¤erences in the ability to devote cognitive resources to a strategic interaction imply di¤erences in strategic behavior. In our experiment, we manipulated the availability of cognitive resources by applying a di¤erential cognitive load. In cognitive load experiments, subjects are directed to perform a task which occupies cognitive resources, in addition to making a choice in another domain. The greater the cognitive resources required for the task implies that fewer such resources are available for deliberation on the choice. In our experiment, subjects played a …nitely repeated multi-player prisoner's dilemma game under two cognitive load treatments. In one treatment, subjects were placed under a high cognitive load (given a 7 digit number to recall) and subjects in the other were placed under a low cognitive load (given a 2 digit number). According to two di¤erent measures, we …nd evidence that the low load subjects behaved more strategically. First, the low load subjects exhibited more strategic defection near the end of play than the high load subjects. Second, we …nd evidence that low load subjects were better able to condition their behavior on the outcomes of previous periods.

The effect of cognitive load on economic decision making: A survey and new experiments

“…We do not find any evidence that cognitive load increases impatience as 21 In contrast, Shiv and Fedorikhin (1999) who identify the effect, do so with about 80 observations. 22 There does not seem to be much learning occurring. In addition to splitting the data into three equal parts, we also included a (period x 8-digit) interaction term for each of the four tasks as a robustness check.…”

The Dual-Process Approach to Human Sociality: A Review

“…Main result Time constraint studies Sutter et al (2003) UG responder Pressure increases rejection of low offers, compared to Delay Cappelletti et al (2011) UG responder Pressure increases rejection of low offers, compared to Delay Grimm & Mengel (2011) UG responder Delay decreases rejection of low offers, compared to Baseline Wang et al (2011) UG responder Delay decreases rejection of low offers, compared to Baseline Neo et al (2013) UG responder Delay decreases rejection of low offers, compared to Baseline Ferguson et al (2014) UG responder Delay, compared to baseline, decreases rejection rates of mildly unfair offers (60:40), leaving the rejection rates of unfairer offers unaffected Oechssler et al (2015) UG responder Delay, compared to baseline, decreases rejections rates when offers are made using lottery tickets and not when using cash Conceptual prime studies Hochman et al (2015) UG responder Intuition decreases rejection rates, compared to Deliberation Cognitive load studies Cappelletti et al (2011) UG responder Load has no effect on rejection of low offers Duffy & Smith (2014) Iterated prisoner's dilemma…”

“…Among the remaining studies, only three of them used ego-depletion (Capraro & Cococcioni, 2016), one of them used foreign language (Urbin et al, 2016), and none of them used cognitive load. The remaining studies included in the meta-analysis either used the trust game, or were obtained as last-rounds of iterated games (Duffy & Smith, 2014;Døssing, Piovesan, & Wengström, 2017, de Haan & van Veldhuizen, 2015Osgood & Muraven, 2015), or regarded situations in which cooperating with one player implies competing with a third party (De Dreu, Dussel & Ten Velden, 2015). A similar asymmetry of studies concerns also the other two meta-analyses (Kvarven et al, 2019;Rand, 2019), which essentially differs from the original one mainly in the 21 time-pressure studies included in the preregistered replication by Bouwmeester et al (2017).…”

“…Both of these studies found no effect (Cappelletti et al, 2011;Olschewski, Rieskamp and Scheibehenne, 2018). Relevant is also the work of Duffy and Smith (2014), who explored the evolution of cooperation in an iterated prisoner's dilemma played under cognitive load and compared it with the one under no load. They found that the behaviour of people under cognitive load converges to the Nash equilibrium at a slower rate than the behaviour of people under low load.…”

Cognitive abilities and economic behavior

“…2 Camerer et al (2004) , Costa-Gomes et al (2001) , Costa-Gomes and Crawford (2006) , Costa-Gomes and Weizsacker (2008) , Crawford et al (2013) , McKelvey and Palfrey (1995) , Nagel (1995) , Rey-Biel (20 09) , Slonim (20 05) , Wilson (1994, 1995) , Weber (2001) , andWeber (2003) . 3 Agranov et al (2015) , 2012 ), Allred et al (2016) , Burchardi and Penczynski (2014) , Cappelletti et al (2011) , Coricelli and Nagel (2009 , Crawford (2008) , Duffy and Smith (2014) , Schulz et al (2014) , and Wang et al (2010) . …”