The neural bases of behavioral game theory
post by lukeprog · 2011-09-22T20:29:05.714Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 2 commentsBhatt & Camerer (2011). The cognitive neuroscience of strategic thinking. Abstract:
This chapter focuses on some emerging elements of a neuroscientific basis for behavioral game theory. The premise of this chapter is that game theory can be useful in helping to elucidate the neural basis of strategic thinking. The great strength of game theory is that it offers precision in defining what players are likely to do and suggesting algorithms of reasoning and learning. Whether people are using these algorithms can be estimated from behavior and from psychological observables (such as response times and eye tracking of attention), and used as parametric regressors to identify candidate brain circuits that appear to encode those regressors.
This review article may be particularly interesting for those who suspect that game theory may play a major role in human value, perhaps even in ways that would make it more intuitively plausible that reasonable value extrapolation algorithms can be developed.
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comment by malthrin · 2011-09-23T04:09:58.736Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Thank you, that was an enjoyable read. That we can actually accomplish the methodology described in the conclusion - generate numbers out of iterated game theory, match those numbers against quantities observed in the brain via fMRI - is setting off science-is-awesome fuzzies.