Cognitive psychology and game theory

A Nash equilibrium is an outcome of any game in which the strategy chosen by each player is a best reply to the strategies chosen by the other player s , in the sense that no other choice would have yielded a better payoff, given the strategy choices of the other player s , and as a consequence no player has cause to regret the chosen strategy when the outcome is revealed.

Binmore is useful for mathematically minded beginners and more advanced readers, and the simpler text Gibbons conveys the basic mathematics more briefly. Colman reviews the fundamental ideas of game theory and related experimental research from a psychological perspective. Camerer provides the first wide-ranging survey of behavioral game theory in book form.

In an influential monograph, Schelling uses game theory brilliantly to illuminate psychological features of human strategic interaction. Binmore, K. Fun and games: A text on game theory. Lexington, MA: Heath. This is a basic text on mathematical game theory written by a leading game theorist. It presents mathematical aspects of the theory exceptionally clearly, and readers with a basic knowledge of school mathematics should be able to understand it.

Parts of it are far from elementary, making it interesting and informative even for readers with an intermediate-level understanding of game theory.

Game theory: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford Univ. DOI: This very short introduction to the formal aspects of the theory outlines the basic ideas in an easily digestible form. Camerer, C. Behavioral game theory: Experiments in strategic interaction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. This is a magisterial review of almost the whole of behavioral game theory up to the early s. This book covers many key topics in remarkable depth, and much of it is essentially psychological in flavor. Cognitive psychology is a discipline dedicated to understanding the human mind via mental processes such as problem solving, language, perception, attention, and memory.

Originating in the fields of Human Factors and Human-Computer Interaction, UX as a discipline incorporates knowledge and methodologies from behavioral sciences — including cognitive psychology — to evaluate the ease of use and emotions elicited from a product or system. Video game studios have increasingly turned to this relatively new discipline to ensure that the games they develop offer a compelling experience to the targeted players. The inclusion of UX considerations in the design process saves rather than costs a studio money as it allows for more successful game development, contrary to some misconceptions see Hodent, However, no objective definition of fun has emerged, nor any detailed parameters to attain it.

UX offers a framework to ensure that the experience intended is the one ultimately felt by the target audience. UX representatives use guidelines heuristics and methodologies user research to anticipate and evaluate how end users interact with a specific game, software, or service and the emotions elicited via this interaction.

Players then develop their own mental model of how they think the game works through their interactions with it, given their prior knowledge and expectations. The developers have to adjust the vision of the game in development to comply with the limitations of the system e. Similarly, the developers must comply with the capabilities and limitations of the human mind to offer a compelling experience to the players.

Playing a video game is a learning experience, from discovering the game to mastering its subtleties. Information that the brain processes originates from perceived input that then impacts the memory of a subject. The quality of the processing — and ultimately the quality of the retention — depends highly on the attentional resources applied, which are also dependent on the emotions and motivation felt by the players.

Thus, to improve the experience of the players, video game developers must take into account the perception, memory, and attention limitations of the brain , as well as the emotions and motivation felt by the players. Perception involves all the mental processes that allow us to sense our environment and construct our own mental representations of it. Thus, these processes are bottom-up proceeding from sensation to cognition access to semantics and also top-down whereby cognition i.

For example, the save icon usually symbolized by a floppy disk is likely meaningless to young children who do not have a mental representation for this object, until they learn what it symbolizes when using a computer. This example illustrates that perception is subjective. Therefore, game players or technology users may understand a specific element differently than what the designer had intended.

To ensure that the game menus and signs and feedback will be understood as designed, it is important to assess them with the end users during usability tests whereby, for example, a sample of target users are presented with icons and they have to explain what the icons look like and denote.

Ideally, the form shape of an icon should correctly inform the players about its function what it does or how to interact with it. The signs in a video game refer to all the perceptible cues that either urge the player to execute a specific action or inform the player of a system status.

For example, a yellow exclamation mark above a non-player character NPC encourages the player to interact with that NPC. For example, an avatar may animate when the player uses the thumbstick or WASD keys. Another example is the ammunition count depleting when the player is shooting. Overall, all possible interactions should have signs and feedback associated with them. These signs and feedback, and the user interface overall, should be perceptible and provide enough clarity to help the player understand the game mechanics.

The Gestalt principles provide useful guidelines that should help designers organize the game interface in a way that will be correctly understood by the players see Johnson, , for examples in software design. Gestalt principles account for how the human mind perceives and organizes the environment Wertheimer, For example, the Gestalt law of proximity describes how elements that are close to one another are interpreted as belonging to the same group.

When considering the heads-up display HUD of a game, displaying the icons and symbols representing features that are related next to each other enacts this law. Thus, it is what the end players subjectively perceive and understand about the game interface that matters, not the reality of what the developers and designers have implemented.

Memory allows us to encode, store, and retrieve information and has been seen as comprised of sensory memory, working memory, and long-term memory Atkinson and Shiffrin, ; Baddeley, Sensory memory is part of perception and retains sensory information for a very short period of time such as a fraction of a second without it being consciously processed.

For example, the persistence of vision e. They may work in hospitals, mental health clinics, or private practices. Psychologists who work in this area often focus on a particular area of interest such as memory, while others might instead choose to work directly on specific health concerns related to cognition, such as degenerative brain disorders or brain injuries. The work of cognitive psychologists is essential for helping people who have experienced issues with mental processes.

While we tend to take abilities such as attention and problem solving for granted, perhaps because they are so woven into the fabric of our everyday existence, cognitive disruptions can create havoc in multiple areas of an individual's life.

Attention problems can make it difficult to focus at work or at school. Even relatively minor memory problems can make it a struggle to handle the demands of everyday life. Consider, for example, how negative thinking can interfere with your health and happiness. We all experience these negative thoughts from time to time, but some people may find themselves overwhelmed with pessimistic thinking patterns that make it difficult to function in daily life.

These ruminations can lead to increased stress levels, pessimism, and self-sabotaging, and can even contribute to feelings of learned helplessness. With the help of cognitive psychologists, people are often able to find ways to cope and even overcome such difficulties. Therapy treatments rooted in cognitive research focus on helping people change these negative thinking patterns and replace such thoughts with more positive and realistic ones. In addition to adding to our understanding of how the human mind works, the field of cognitive psychology has also had an impact on approaches to mental health.

Before the s, many mental health approaches were focused more on psychoanalytic , behavioral , and humanistic approaches. The so-called "cognitive revolution" that took place during this period put a greater emphasis on understanding the way people process information and how thinking patterns might contribute to psychological distress.

Thanks to research in this area by cognitive psychologists, new approaches to treatment were developed to help treat depression, anxiety, phobias, and other psychological disorders. Cognitive behavior therapy and rational emotive behavior therapy are two methods in which clients and therapists focus on the underlying cognitions that contribute to psychological distress.

Therapists can help clients identify irrational beliefs and other cognitive distortions that are in conflict with reality and then aid them in replacing such thoughts with more realistic, healthy beliefs. If you are experiencing symptoms of a psychological disorder that would benefit from the use of cognitive approaches, you might see a psychologist who has specific training in these cognitive treatment methods. These professionals frequently go by titles other than cognitive psychologists, such as psychiatrist, clinical psychologist , or counseling psychologist , but many of the strategies they utilize are rooted in the cognitive tradition.

If you're unsure of a practitioner's discipline or approach, just ask him or her. As you can see, the field of cognitive psychology is both broad and diverse, yet it touches on so many aspects of daily life. Research on cognitive psychology may at times seem academic and far-removed from the problems you face in everyday life, yet the findings from such scientific investigations play a role in how professionals approach the treatment of mental illness, traumatic brain injury, and degenerative brain diseases.

With more than 2. If people were accurately guessing what everyone else would do, they would pick numbers from 1 to with equal frequency, and rarely pick any higher numbers. The Swedish players, however, chose lower numbers--numbers below much too often, from a strategic point of view. Camerer and colleagues have also been looking at how people make economic decisions when they are not given sufficient information to make an informed choice.

If you guessed that their prices are high, you'd probably be right. The reason for this boost in ticket sales? Camerer thinks it has to do with people who don't think strategically--who don't have high strategic IQs. Camerer notes that cognitive hierarchy theory can be used by people and businesses to forecast more accurately what other people are likely to do in various situations; they can then use those forecasts to make better choices.