Neuroscience
From the Scientific American website:
May 20, 2007
The Traveler's Dilemma
When playing this simple game, people consistently reject the rational choice. In fact, by acting illogically, they end up reaping a larger reward--an outcome that demands a new kind of formal reasoning
By Kaushik Basu
Lucy and Pete, returning from a remote Pacific island, find that the airline has damaged the identical antiques that each had purchased. An airline manager says that he is happy to compensate them but is handicapped by being clueless about the value of these strange objects. Simply asking the travelers for the price is hopeless, he figures, for they will inflate it.
Instead he devises a more complicated scheme. He asks each of them to write down the price of the antique as any dollar integer between 2 and 100 without conferring together. If both write the same number, he will take that to be the true price, and he will pay each of them that amount. But if they write different numbers, he will assume that the lower one is the actual price and that the person writing the higher number is cheating. In that case, he will pay both of them the lower number along with a bonus and a penalty--the person who wrote the lower number will get $2 more as a reward for honesty and the one who wrote the higher number will get $2 less as a punishment. For instance, if Lucy writes 46 and Pete writes 100, Lucy will get $48 and Pete will get $44.
What numbers will Lucy and Pete write? What number would you write?
[ ... Read the full article ... ]
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Individuals may outperform groups when it comes to brainstorming for ideas (see earlier post), but for logic-based problem solving, it seems three-person groups work best. That’s according to Patrick Laughlin and colleagues who tested 760 students on...
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From the Jan 8, 2005 issue of New Scientist: How come some people can learn dozens of foreign languages when many of us struggle with just one? Michael Erard investigates Revealing the talents of the language masters THE news arrived as an unexpected...
Neuroscience
Game Theory
From the Scientific American website:
May 20, 2007
The Traveler's Dilemma
When playing this simple game, people consistently reject the rational choice. In fact, by acting illogically, they end up reaping a larger reward--an outcome that demands a new kind of formal reasoning
By Kaushik Basu
Lucy and Pete, returning from a remote Pacific island, find that the airline has damaged the identical antiques that each had purchased. An airline manager says that he is happy to compensate them but is handicapped by being clueless about the value of these strange objects. Simply asking the travelers for the price is hopeless, he figures, for they will inflate it.
Instead he devises a more complicated scheme. He asks each of them to write down the price of the antique as any dollar integer between 2 and 100 without conferring together. If both write the same number, he will take that to be the true price, and he will pay each of them that amount. But if they write different numbers, he will assume that the lower one is the actual price and that the person writing the higher number is cheating. In that case, he will pay both of them the lower number along with a bonus and a penalty--the person who wrote the lower number will get $2 more as a reward for honesty and the one who wrote the higher number will get $2 less as a punishment. For instance, if Lucy writes 46 and Pete writes 100, Lucy will get $48 and Pete will get $44.
What numbers will Lucy and Pete write? What number would you write?
[ ... Read the full article ... ]
- Ouch, That's Expensive!
As well as hurting your wallet, your brain expects an expensive product to cause you pain too. Researchers have found that in terms of brain activity, whether or not we choose to make a purchase is reflected in a trade-off between regions of the brain...
- Three-person Groups Best For Problem-solving
Individuals may outperform groups when it comes to brainstorming for ideas (see earlier post), but for logic-based problem solving, it seems three-person groups work best. That’s according to Patrick Laughlin and colleagues who tested 760 students on...
- 080808 (god Is A Number Part 1)
In Chinese numerology, the number eight is associated with prosperity. It's such a lucky number1 (as everyone knows by now), that the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing will begin at 8:08PM on 08/08/08. In My Mascot Only Gave Me Sex...
- Synethesia, The Stroop Effect, And ... Football?
According to last Wednesday's New York Times, NFL players might be able to choose jersey numbers beyond the numbering system devised in the 1970s. This requires, for example, that linebackers can have numbers in the 50s, and quarterbacks may select...
- Hyperpolyglots, From New Scientist
From the Jan 8, 2005 issue of New Scientist: How come some people can learn dozens of foreign languages when many of us struggle with just one? Michael Erard investigates Revealing the talents of the language masters THE news arrived as an unexpected...