Experimental games

OutRun: Perversive Games and Designing the De-Simulation of Eight-Bit Driving (FDG 2010)

by Garnet Hertz

Conference proceedings, Foundations of Digital Games 2010, June 12-21, Monterey, CA, USA

This paper outlines the development process of a mixed reality video game prototype that combines a classic arcade... more This paper outlines the development process of a mixed reality video game prototype that combines a classic arcade driving game with a real world vehicle. In this project the user, or player, maneuvers the car-shaped arcade cabinet through actual physical space using a screen as a navigational guide which renders the real world in the style of an 8-bit video game. This case study is presented as a “perversive game”: an attempt to disrupt the everyday by highlighting and inverting conventional behavior through humor and paradox.

Mobile Gaming: An Engineer Puts an Arcade Cabinet on Wheels (Popular Science)

by Garnet Hertz

Popular Science (February 2012). Story by Gregory Mone. Photographs by Jeff Newton. Edited by Doug Cantor.

In the late 1980s, millions of arcade-addicted kids sat in the faux racing seats of Sega's OutRun videogame, grabbed... more In the late 1980s, millions of arcade-addicted kids sat in the faux racing seats of Sega's OutRun videogame, grabbed the rubber-covered wheel of the imitation Ferrari Testarossa, pressed down on the pedals, and imagined they were roaring down the street. Twenty-five years later, one of those kids, Garnet Hertz, has realized that fantasy, modding an 1,100-pound arcade machine to ride on pavement.

Playing with Difficult Objects – Game Designs to Improve Museum Collections

by Mia Ridge

Paper for Museums and the Web 2011 (MW2011)

Crowdsourcing the creation, correction or enhancement of data about objects through games is an attractive proposition... more Crowdsourcing the creation, correction or enhancement of data about objects through games is an attractive proposition for museums looking to maximize use of their collections online without committing intensive curatorial resources to enhancing catalogue records. This paper investigates the optimum game designs to encourage participation and the generation of useful data through a case study of the project Museum Metadata Games that successfully designed games that created improved metadata for 'difficult' objects from two science and history museum collections.

Effects of Network Segregation in Intergroup Conflict: An Experimental Analysis.

by Károly Takács

Takács, K. 2007. Effects of Network Segregation in Intergroup Conflict: An Experimental Analysis. Connections, 27(2): 49-72.

Dense in-group and scarce out-group relations (network segregation) often support the emergence of conflicts between... more Dense in-group and scarce out-group relations (network segregation) often support the emergence of conflicts between groups. A key underlying mechanism is social control that helps to overcome the collective action problem within groups, but contributes to harmful conflicts among them in segregated settings. In this study, a new experimental design is introduced to test whether internalized social control affects contribution decisions in intergroup related collective action. Subjects played single-shot Intergroup Public Good games in two groups of five without communication. Subjects were connected via computers and connection patterns were manipulated to detect forms of social control that are activated conditional on expectations and on the composition of the artificially created ego-network. Results confirm the influence of behavioral confirmation and the conditional impact of internalized selective incentives. As an aggregated consequence of these social control effects, harmful intergroup outcomes were least likely when members of the groups were arranged in a mixed network.

An Experimental Analysis of Network Segregation and Intergroup Conflict

by Károly Takács

Takács, K. 2005. An Experimental Analysis of Network Segregation and Intergroup Conflict. Review of Sociology, 11(1): 5-34.

Dense in-group and scarce out-group relations (network segregation) often support the emergence of conflicts between... more Dense in-group and scarce out-group relations (network segregation) often support the emergence of conflicts between groups. A key underlying mechanism is social control that helps to overcome the collective action problem within groups, but contributes to harmful conflicts among them in segregated settings. In this study, a new experimental design is introduced to test whether internalized social control affects contribution decisions in intergroup-related collective action. Subjects played single-shot Intergroup Public Good games in two groups of five each without communication. Subjects were connected via computers and connection patterns were manipulated to detect forms of social control that are activated conditional on expectations and on the composition of the artificially created ego-network. Results confirm the influence of behavioral confirmation and the conditional impact of internalized traitor and selective incentives. As an aggregated consequence of these social control effects, harmful intergroup outcomes were least likely when members of the groups were arranged in a mixed network.

Behaving as Expected: Public Information and Fairness Norms

by Cristina Bicchieri

Co-authored with Alex Chavez; Published in Journal of Behavioral Decision Making , 23 (2): 161-178, 2010

What is considered to be fair depends on context-dependent expectations. Using a modified version of the Ultimatum... more What is considered to be fair depends on context-dependent expectations. Using a modified version of the Ultimatum Game, we demonstrate that both fair behavior and perceptions of fairness depend upon beliefs about what one ought to do in a situation — that is, upon normative expectations. We manipulate such expectations by creating informational asymmetries about the offer choices available to the Proposer, and find that behavior varies accordingly. Proposers and Responders show a remarkable degree of agreement in their beliefs about which choices are considered fair. We discuss how these results fit into a theory of social norms.

Trustworthiness is a social norm, but trusting is not

by Cristina Bicchieri

Co-authored with Erte Xiao and Ryan Muldoon. Published in 'Politics, Philosophy and Economics', 2011

Previous literature has demonstrated the important role that trust plays in developing and maintaining... more Previous literature has demonstrated the important role that trust plays in developing and maintaining well-functioning societies. However, if we are to learn how to increase
levels of trust in society, we must first understand why people choose to trust others.  One potential answer to this is that people view trust as normative: there is a social norm for trusting that imposes punishment for noncompliance. To test this, we report data from a survey with salient rewards to elicit people’s attitudes regarding the punishment of distrusting behavior in a trust game. Our results show that people do not behave as though trust is a norm. Our participants expected that most people would not punish untrusting investors, regardless of whether the potential trustee was a stranger or a
friend. In contrast, our participants behaved as though being trustworthy is a norm. Most participants believed that most people would punish someone who failed to reciprocate
a stranger’s or a friend’s trust. We conclude that, while we were able to reproduce previous results establishing that there is a norm of reciprocity, we found no evidence for a corresponding norm of trust, even among friends.

Words or Deeds? Choosing What to Know About Others

by Cristina Bicchieri

Co-authored with Erte Xiao, forthcoming in Synthese

Social cooperation often relies on individuals’ spontaneous norm obedience when there is no punishment for violation... more Social cooperation often relies on individuals’ spontaneous norm obedience when there is no punishment for violation or reward for compliance. However, people do not consistently follow pro-social norms. Previous studies have suggested that an individual’s tendency toward norm conformity is affected by empirical information (i.e. what others did or would do in a similar situation) as well as by normative information (i.e. what others think one ought to do). Yet little is known about whether people have an intrinsic desire to obtain norm-revealing information. In this paper, we use a dictator game to investigate whether dictators actively seek norm-revealing information and, if so, whether they prefer to get empirical or normative information. Our data show that although the majority of dictators choose to view free information before making decisions, they are equally likely to choose empirical or normative information. However, a large majority (more than 80%) of dictators are not willing to incur even a very small cost for getting information. Our findings help to understand why norm compliance is context-dependent, and highlight the importance of making norm-revealing information salient in order to promote conformity.

Group and dyadic communication in trust games

by Cristina Bicchieri

co-authored with Azi Lev-On and Alex Chavez, published in Rationality and Society, 22(1), 2010

We study the behavioral consequences of interpersonal communication prior to experimental Trust games. We manipulated... more We study the behavioral consequences of interpersonal communication prior to experimental Trust games. We manipulated the richness of the communication medium and the size of the communicating group. Communication richness failed to produce significant differences in first-mover investments, but the size of the communicating group did: The amounts sent were significantly higher in the dyadic communication conditions than in the group communication and no-communication conditions. We also found that first-movers’ expectations of second-movers’ reciprocation strongly predicted their levels of investment.

The fragility of fairness: an experimental investigation on the conditional status of pro-social norms

by Cristina Bicchieri

Published in Nous (Philosophical Issues 18 Interdisciplinary Core Philosophy), 227-246, 2008

Can groups be trusted? An experimental study of trust in collective entities

by Cristina Bicchieri

Co-authored with Bill McEvilv, Roberto A. Webet, and Violet T. Ho; Published in in R. Bachmann and A. Zaheer (eds.) The Handbook of Trust. Edward Elgar publishing,  2006

An Embarrassment of Riches: Modeling Social Preferences in Ultimatum Games

by Cristina Bicchieri

published in U. Maki (ed.) Handbook of the Philosophy of Economics, Elsevier 2010

A comparison of three different models of social preferences:  inequity aversion, reciprocity and conditional... more A comparison of three different models of social preferences:  inequity aversion, reciprocity and conditional preference for following social norms.

Cognitive Load and Empathy in Serious Games: A Conceptual Framework

by Sharon Tettegah

co-authored with Wen-Hao David Huang (2010).

The lion’s share. An experimental analysis of polygamy in Northern Nigeria.

by Alistair Munro

Co-authored with Bereket Kebede, Marcela Tarazona-Gomez and Arjan Verschoor


Keywords: Polygyny, Polygamy, Experiment, Household, Nigeria

Report No. : 10-27
Date : 2010.12

Using samples of polygamous and non-polygamous households from villages in rural areas south of Kano, Northern Nigeria... more Using samples of polygamous and non-polygamous households from villages in rural areas south of Kano, Northern Nigeria we test basic theories of household behaviour. Husbands and wives play two variants of a voluntary contributions game in which endowments are private knowledge, but contributions are public. In one variant, the common pool is split equally. In the other treatment the husband allocates the pool (and wives are forewarned of this). Most partners keep back at least half of their endowment from the common pool, but we find no evidence that polygynous households are less efficient than their monogamous counterparts. We also reject a strong form of Bergstrom’s model of polygyny in which all wives receive an equal allocation. In our case, senior wives often receive more from their husbands, no matter what their contribution. Thus the return to contributions is higher for senior wives compared to their junior counterparts. When they control the allocation, polygynous men receive a higher payoff than their monogamous counterparts. We speculate on the implications of this pattern of investment and reward for the sustainability of polygynous institutions.

Testing Explanations of Preference Reversal*

by Alistair Munro

Is There Loss Aversion In Buying? An Adversarial Collaboration

by Alistair Munro

Pillars of Trust: An Experimental Study on Reputation and Its Effects

by Flaminio Squazzoni

co-authors RiccaCo-authored with Riccardo Boero, Giangiacomo Bravo, Marco Castellani and Francesco Laganà, published in "Sociological Research Online", Volume 14, Issue 5, 2009

This paper presents the results of laboratory experiments on the relevance of reputation for trust and cooperation in... more This paper presents the results of laboratory experiments on the relevance of reputation for trust and cooperation in social interaction. We have extended a repeated investment game by adding new treatments where reputation is taken more explicitly into account than before. We then compared treatments where the investor and the trustee rate each other and treatments where the investor and the trustee were rated by a third party. The results showed that: (i) third party reputation positively affects cooperation by encapsulating trust; (ii) certain differences in the reputation mechanism can generate different cooperation outcomes. These results have interesting implications for the recent sociological debate on the normative pillars of markets.

Reputational Cues in Repeated Trust Games

by Flaminio Squazzoni

Co-authored with Riccardo Boero, Giangiacomo Bravo and Marco Castellani

The importance of reputation in human societies is highlighted both by theoretical models and empirical studies. In... more The importance of reputation in human societies is highlighted both by theoretical models and empirical studies. In this paper, we have extended the scope of previous experimental studies based on trust games by creating treatments where players can rate their opponents’ behavior and know their past ratings. Our results showed that being rated by other players and letting this rating be known are factors that increase cooperation levels even when rational reputational investment motives are ruled out. More generally, subjects tended to respond to reputational opportunities even when this was neither rational nor explainable by reciprocity.