Learning to cooperate without awareness in multiplayer minimal social situations

a b s t r a c t Experimental and Monte Carlo methods were used to test theoretical predictions about adaptive learning of cooperative responses without awareness in minimal social situations-games in which the payoffs to players depend not on their own actions but exclusively on the actions of other group members. In Experiment 1, learning occurred slowly over 200 rounds in a dyadic minimal social situation but not in multiplayer groups. In Experiments 2-4, learning occurred rarely in multiplayer groups, even when players were informed that they were interacting strategically and were allowed to communicate with one another but were not aware of the game's payoff structure. Monte Carlo simulation suggested that players approach minimal social situations using a noisy version of the win-stay, lose-shift decision rule, deviating from the deterministic rule less frequently after rewarding than unrewarding rounds

Magnocellular involvement in flanked-letter identification relates to the allocation of attention

AbstractTo verify the hypothesis that the magnocellular system is important to flanked-letter identification [Neuropsychologia 40 (2002) 1881] because it subserves attention allocation, we conducted three letter-naming experiments in which we manipulated magnocellular involvement (colour vs. luminance contrast) and prior information regarding target-letter location. Location information was provided through constant presentation at the same location (Experiment 1) or through auditory precueing (Experiments 2 and 3). In control conditions, either no (Experiments 1 and 3) or invalid (Experiment 2) location information was given. In line with the hypothesis, magnocellular input helped flanked-letter identification only when no prior location information was given

WSLS Simulator

WSLS Simulato

Learning to cooperate without awareness in multiplayer minimal social situations

Experimental and Monte Carlo methods were used to test theoretical predictions about adaptive learning of cooperative responses without awareness in minimal social situations—games in which the payoffs to players depend not on their own actions but exclusively on the actions of other group members. In Experiment 1, learning occurred slowly over 200 rounds in a dyadic minimal social situation but not in multiplayer groups. In Experiments 2–4, learning occurred rarely in multiplayer groups, even when players were informed that they were interacting strategically and were allowed to communicate with one another but were not aware of the game’s payoff structure. Monte Carlo simulation suggested that players approach minimal social situations using a noisy version of the win–stay, lose–shift decision rule, deviating from the deterministic rule less frequently after rewarding than unrewarding round