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Chimpanzee choice rates in competitive games match equilibrium game theory predictions
The capacity for strategic thinking about the payoff-relevant actions of conspecifics is not well understood across species. We use game theory to make predictions about choices and temporal dynamics in three abstract competitive situations with chimpanzee participants. Frequencies of chimpanzee cho...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4046491/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24901997 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep05182 |
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author | Martin, Christopher Flynn Bhui, Rahul Bossaerts, Peter Matsuzawa, Tetsuro Camerer, Colin |
author_facet | Martin, Christopher Flynn Bhui, Rahul Bossaerts, Peter Matsuzawa, Tetsuro Camerer, Colin |
author_sort | Martin, Christopher Flynn |
collection | PubMed |
description | The capacity for strategic thinking about the payoff-relevant actions of conspecifics is not well understood across species. We use game theory to make predictions about choices and temporal dynamics in three abstract competitive situations with chimpanzee participants. Frequencies of chimpanzee choices are extremely close to equilibrium (accurate-guessing) predictions, and shift as payoffs change, just as equilibrium theory predicts. The chimpanzee choices are also closer to the equilibrium prediction, and more responsive to past history and payoff changes, than two samples of human choices from experiments in which humans were also initially uninformed about opponent payoffs and could not communicate verbally. The results are consistent with a tentative interpretation of game theory as explaining evolved behavior, with the additional hypothesis that chimpanzees may retain or practice a specialized capacity to adjust strategy choice during competition to perform at least as well as, or better than, humans have. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4046491 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-40464912014-06-12 Chimpanzee choice rates in competitive games match equilibrium game theory predictions Martin, Christopher Flynn Bhui, Rahul Bossaerts, Peter Matsuzawa, Tetsuro Camerer, Colin Sci Rep Article The capacity for strategic thinking about the payoff-relevant actions of conspecifics is not well understood across species. We use game theory to make predictions about choices and temporal dynamics in three abstract competitive situations with chimpanzee participants. Frequencies of chimpanzee choices are extremely close to equilibrium (accurate-guessing) predictions, and shift as payoffs change, just as equilibrium theory predicts. The chimpanzee choices are also closer to the equilibrium prediction, and more responsive to past history and payoff changes, than two samples of human choices from experiments in which humans were also initially uninformed about opponent payoffs and could not communicate verbally. The results are consistent with a tentative interpretation of game theory as explaining evolved behavior, with the additional hypothesis that chimpanzees may retain or practice a specialized capacity to adjust strategy choice during competition to perform at least as well as, or better than, humans have. Nature Publishing Group 2014-06-05 /pmc/articles/PMC4046491/ /pubmed/24901997 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep05182 Text en Copyright © 2014, Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. The images in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the image credit; if the image is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the image. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Martin, Christopher Flynn Bhui, Rahul Bossaerts, Peter Matsuzawa, Tetsuro Camerer, Colin Chimpanzee choice rates in competitive games match equilibrium game theory predictions |
title | Chimpanzee choice rates in competitive games match equilibrium game theory predictions |
title_full | Chimpanzee choice rates in competitive games match equilibrium game theory predictions |
title_fullStr | Chimpanzee choice rates in competitive games match equilibrium game theory predictions |
title_full_unstemmed | Chimpanzee choice rates in competitive games match equilibrium game theory predictions |
title_short | Chimpanzee choice rates in competitive games match equilibrium game theory predictions |
title_sort | chimpanzee choice rates in competitive games match equilibrium game theory predictions |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4046491/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24901997 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep05182 |
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