Active Iterative Social Inference in Multi-Trial Signaling Games
AbstractHuman behavioral choices can reveal intrinsic and extrinsic decision-influencing factors. We investigate the inference of choice priors in situations of referential ambiguity. In particular, we use the scenario of signaling games and investigate to which extent study particip...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The MIT Press
2023-01-01
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| Series: | Open Mind |
| Online Access: | https://direct.mit.edu/opmi/article/doi/10.1162/opmi_a_00074/115302/Active-Iterative-Social-Inference-in-Multi-Trial |
| _version_ | 1797837508164190208 |
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| author | Asya Achimova Gregory Scontras Ella Eisemann Martin V. Butz |
| author_facet | Asya Achimova Gregory Scontras Ella Eisemann Martin V. Butz |
| author_sort | Asya Achimova |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
AbstractHuman behavioral choices can reveal intrinsic and extrinsic decision-influencing factors. We investigate the inference of choice priors in situations of referential ambiguity. In particular, we use the scenario of signaling games and investigate to which extent study participants profit from actively engaging in the task. Previous work has revealed that speakers are able to infer listeners’ choice priors upon observing ambiguity resolution. However, it was also shown that only a small group of participants was able to strategically construct ambiguous situations to create learning opportunities. This paper sets to address how prior inference unfolds in more complex learning scenarios. In Experiment 1, we examine whether participants accumulate evidence about inferred choice priors across a series of four consecutive trials. Despite the intuitive simplicity of the task, information integration turns out to be only partially successful. Integration errors result from a variety of sources, including transitivity failure and recency bias. In Experiment 2, we investigate how the ability to actively construct learning scenarios affects the success of prior inference and whether the iterative settings improve the ability to choose utterances strategically. The results suggest that full task engagement and explicit access to the reasoning pipeline facilitates the invocation of optimal utterance choices as well as the accurate inference of listeners’ choice priors. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-09T15:26:55Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-671394ebff384ddf81e2e64f2e109ab1 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2470-2986 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-09T15:26:55Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | The MIT Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Open Mind |
| spelling | doaj.art-671394ebff384ddf81e2e64f2e109ab12023-04-28T17:03:41ZengThe MIT PressOpen Mind2470-29862023-01-01711112910.1162/opmi_a_00074Active Iterative Social Inference in Multi-Trial Signaling GamesAsya Achimova0http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7826-989XGregory Scontras1Ella Eisemann2Martin V. Butz3http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8120-8537Research Training Group 1808 “Ambiguity: Production and Perception”, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, GermanyDepartment of Language Science, University of California, Irvine, USAInstitute of Vocational Education and Work Studies, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, GermanyResearch Training Group 1808 “Ambiguity: Production and Perception”, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany AbstractHuman behavioral choices can reveal intrinsic and extrinsic decision-influencing factors. We investigate the inference of choice priors in situations of referential ambiguity. In particular, we use the scenario of signaling games and investigate to which extent study participants profit from actively engaging in the task. Previous work has revealed that speakers are able to infer listeners’ choice priors upon observing ambiguity resolution. However, it was also shown that only a small group of participants was able to strategically construct ambiguous situations to create learning opportunities. This paper sets to address how prior inference unfolds in more complex learning scenarios. In Experiment 1, we examine whether participants accumulate evidence about inferred choice priors across a series of four consecutive trials. Despite the intuitive simplicity of the task, information integration turns out to be only partially successful. Integration errors result from a variety of sources, including transitivity failure and recency bias. In Experiment 2, we investigate how the ability to actively construct learning scenarios affects the success of prior inference and whether the iterative settings improve the ability to choose utterances strategically. The results suggest that full task engagement and explicit access to the reasoning pipeline facilitates the invocation of optimal utterance choices as well as the accurate inference of listeners’ choice priors.https://direct.mit.edu/opmi/article/doi/10.1162/opmi_a_00074/115302/Active-Iterative-Social-Inference-in-Multi-Trial |
| spellingShingle | Asya Achimova Gregory Scontras Ella Eisemann Martin V. Butz Active Iterative Social Inference in Multi-Trial Signaling Games Open Mind |
| title | Active Iterative Social Inference in Multi-Trial Signaling Games |
| title_full | Active Iterative Social Inference in Multi-Trial Signaling Games |
| title_fullStr | Active Iterative Social Inference in Multi-Trial Signaling Games |
| title_full_unstemmed | Active Iterative Social Inference in Multi-Trial Signaling Games |
| title_short | Active Iterative Social Inference in Multi-Trial Signaling Games |
| title_sort | active iterative social inference in multi trial signaling games |
| url | https://direct.mit.edu/opmi/article/doi/10.1162/opmi_a_00074/115302/Active-Iterative-Social-Inference-in-Multi-Trial |
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