Cognitive capacity and cognitive hierarchy: a study based on beauty contest experiments

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Abstract

Recent developments in behavioral experiments, in particular game experiments, have placed human cognition in a pivotal place. Two related ideas are proposed and are popularly used in the literature, namely, cognitive hierarchy and cognitive capacity. While these two often meet in the same set of experiments and observations, few studies have formally addressed their relationship. In this study, based on six series of 15- to 20-person beauty contest experiments and the associated working memory tests, we examine the effect of cognitive capacity on the observed cognitive hierarchy. It is found that cognitive capacity has a positive effect on the observed cognitive hierarchy. This effect is strong in the initial rounds, and may become weaker, but without disappearing, in subsequent rounds, which suggests the possibility that cognitive capacity may further impact learning. We examine this possibility using the Markov transition dynamics of cognitive hierarchy. There is evidence to show that subjects with different cognitive capacities may learn differently, which may cause strong convergence to be difficult to observe.

Keywords

Beauty contest experiment Intelligence Working memory capacity Level-k reasoning Cognitive hierarchies 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the 2009 NeuroPsychoEconomics Conference, Bonn, Germany, October 5–6, 2009, the IAREP/SABE/ICABEEP 2010 Conference, Cologne, Germany, September 5–8, 2010, the IAREP/SABE/ICABEEP 2011 Conference, Exeter, UK, July 12–16, 2011, the Bay Area Behavioral and Experimental Economics Workshop, Santa Clara University, US, May 4–5, 2012, and the 2012 ESA Regional Conference, Westward Look Resort, Tucson, Arizona, November 16–17, 2012. The authors are grateful to the conference participant and the anonymous referee of the journal for their valuable suggestions. The NSC Grant 98-2410-H-004-045-MY3 is also gratefully acknowledged.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.AI-ECON Research Center, Department of EconomicsNational Chengchi UniversityTaipeiTaiwan
  2. 2.Department of PsychologyResearch Center for Mind, Brain, and Learning, National Chengchi UniversityTaipeiTaiwan

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