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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...

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Autores principales: Martin, Christopher Flynn, Bhui, Rahul, Bossaerts, Peter, Matsuzawa, Tetsuro, Camerer, Colin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2014
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.
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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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