Eye movements in strategic choice

Stewart, Neil; Gaechter, Simon; Noguchi, Takao; Mullett, Timothy L.

Abstract

In risky and other multiattribute choices, the process of choosing is well described by random walk or drift diffusion models in which evidence is accumulated over time to threshold. In strategic choices, level-k and cognitive hierarchy models have been offered as accounts of the choice process, in which people simulate the choice processes of their opponents or partners. We recorded the eye movements in 2 × 2 symmetric games including dominance-solvable games like prisoner's dilemma and asymmetric coordination games like stag hunt and hawk–dove. The evidence was most consistent with the accumulation of payoff differences over time: we found longer duration choices with more fixations when payoffs differences were more finely balanced, an emerging bias to gaze more at the payoffs for the action ultimately chosen, and that a simple count of transitions between payoffs—whether or not the comparison is strategically informative—was strongly associated with the final choice. The accumulator models do account for these strategic choice process measures, but the level-k and cognitive hierarchy models do not.

Citation

Stewart, N., Gaechter, S., Noguchi, T., & Mullett, T. L. (2016). Eye movements in strategic choice. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 29(2-3), https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.1901

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 30, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Oct 29, 2015
• Publication Date: Mar 28, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jan 13, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 13, 2016
• Journal: Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
• Print ISSN: 0894-3257
• Electronic ISSN: 1099-0771
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 2-3
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.1901
• Keywords: eye tracking, process tracing, experimental games, normal-form games, prisoner's dilemma, stag hunt, hawk–dove, level-k, cognitive hierarchy, drift diffusion, accumulator models, gaze cascade effect, gaze bias effect
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/778981
• Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bdm.1901/abstract