The Curse of Shared Knowledge: Recursive Belief Reasoning in a Coordination Game with Imperfect Information

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research

Standard

The Curse of Shared Knowledge : Recursive Belief Reasoning in a Coordination Game with Imperfect Information. / Bolander, Thomas; Engelhardt, Robin; Nicolet, Thomas S.

In: arXiv, 20.08.2020.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research

Harvard

Bolander, T, Engelhardt, R & Nicolet, TS 2020, 'The Curse of Shared Knowledge: Recursive Belief Reasoning in a Coordination Game with Imperfect Information', arXiv. <http://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.08849v1>

APA

Bolander, T., Engelhardt, R., & Nicolet, T. S. (2020). The Curse of Shared Knowledge: Recursive Belief Reasoning in a Coordination Game with Imperfect Information. arXiv. http://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.08849v1

Vancouver

Bolander T, Engelhardt R, Nicolet TS. The Curse of Shared Knowledge: Recursive Belief Reasoning in a Coordination Game with Imperfect Information. arXiv. 2020 Aug 20.

Author

Bolander, Thomas ; Engelhardt, Robin ; Nicolet, Thomas S. / The Curse of Shared Knowledge : Recursive Belief Reasoning in a Coordination Game with Imperfect Information. In: arXiv. 2020.

Bibtex

@article{38b8f69006d44799b32f40e39e76959d,
title = "The Curse of Shared Knowledge: Recursive Belief Reasoning in a Coordination Game with Imperfect Information",
abstract = " Common knowledge is a necessary condition for safe group coordination. When common knowledge can not be obtained, humans routinely use their ability to attribute beliefs and intentions in order to infer what is known. But such shared knowledge attributions are limited in depth and therefore prone to coordination failures, because any finite-order knowledge attribution allows for an even higher order attribution that may change what is known by whom. In three separate experiments we investigate to which degree human participants (N=802) are able to recognize the difference between common knowledge and nth-order shared knowledge. We use a new two-person coordination game with imperfect information that is able to cast the recursive game structure and higher-order uncertainties into a simple, everyday-like setting. Our results show that participants have a very hard time accepting the fact that common knowledge is not reducible to shared knowledge. Instead, participants try to coordinate even at the shallowest depths of shared knowledge and in spite of huge payoff penalties. ",
keywords = "cs.MA, cs.GT, cs.SI, 91, I.2",
author = "Thomas Bolander and Robin Engelhardt and Nicolet, {Thomas S.}",
year = "2020",
month = aug,
day = "20",
language = "English",
journal = "arXiv",
publisher = "arxiv.org",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Curse of Shared Knowledge

T2 - Recursive Belief Reasoning in a Coordination Game with Imperfect Information

AU - Bolander, Thomas

AU - Engelhardt, Robin

AU - Nicolet, Thomas S.

PY - 2020/8/20

Y1 - 2020/8/20

N2 - Common knowledge is a necessary condition for safe group coordination. When common knowledge can not be obtained, humans routinely use their ability to attribute beliefs and intentions in order to infer what is known. But such shared knowledge attributions are limited in depth and therefore prone to coordination failures, because any finite-order knowledge attribution allows for an even higher order attribution that may change what is known by whom. In three separate experiments we investigate to which degree human participants (N=802) are able to recognize the difference between common knowledge and nth-order shared knowledge. We use a new two-person coordination game with imperfect information that is able to cast the recursive game structure and higher-order uncertainties into a simple, everyday-like setting. Our results show that participants have a very hard time accepting the fact that common knowledge is not reducible to shared knowledge. Instead, participants try to coordinate even at the shallowest depths of shared knowledge and in spite of huge payoff penalties.

AB - Common knowledge is a necessary condition for safe group coordination. When common knowledge can not be obtained, humans routinely use their ability to attribute beliefs and intentions in order to infer what is known. But such shared knowledge attributions are limited in depth and therefore prone to coordination failures, because any finite-order knowledge attribution allows for an even higher order attribution that may change what is known by whom. In three separate experiments we investigate to which degree human participants (N=802) are able to recognize the difference between common knowledge and nth-order shared knowledge. We use a new two-person coordination game with imperfect information that is able to cast the recursive game structure and higher-order uncertainties into a simple, everyday-like setting. Our results show that participants have a very hard time accepting the fact that common knowledge is not reducible to shared knowledge. Instead, participants try to coordinate even at the shallowest depths of shared knowledge and in spite of huge payoff penalties.

KW - cs.MA

KW - cs.GT

KW - cs.SI

KW - 91

KW - I.2

M3 - Journal article

JO - arXiv

JF - arXiv

ER -

ID: 247437456