Instructions 1

Welcome to this experiment at Northeastern University. Thank you for participating.

You are about to participate in a study of decision-making, and you will be paid for your participation through Amazon Mechanical Turk after the experiment. What you earn depends partly on your decisions and partly on the decisions of other participants.

The task follows strict timing, so please pay attention and mute distracting apps or devices.

In this experiment, you will interact with two other human participants: a left neighbor and a right neighbor. You will interact with these same two individuals for the entirety of the experiment.

In this experiment, there are two roles. You will iterate between Role 1 and Role 2. If you are in Role 1, your neighbor will be Role 2 and vice versa.

The entire session consists of multiple rounds. Each round you fill first interact with your left neighbor and then your right neighbor.

Instructions 2

Participants in Role 1 will observe one of two cards. The computer will randomly determine which of the two cards the Role 1 participants observes. Each card is equally likely (i.e., 50% for each card).

After viewing the symbol selected by the computer, Role 1 participants will have the choice of sending one of two signals to the Role 2 participant they are currently interacting with (left or right neighbor). In every round, Role 1 participants will have these same two signals available to them.

This concludes the first part of the round.

In the second part of the round, Role 2 participants are shown which of the two signals their Role 1 counterpart sent them. After viewing the signal, Role 2 participants will be asked to choose one of two actions. These actions correspond to the card that were shown to the Role 1 participants by the computer.

This concludes the second part of the round.

Instructions 3

Before moving to the next round, both participants will be told whether they have succeeded or failed.

If the action chosen by the Role 2 participant corresponds to the original card shown to the Role 1 participant, both participants have succeeded.

If the action chosen by the Role 2 participant does not correspond the original card shown to the Role 1 participant, both participants have failed. There is no way for one participant to fail while the other succeeds.

At this point, the next round begins and you will interact with your other neighbor.

You will always see a summary of your last interaction with your left and right neighbor at the bottom of the screen.

Instructions 4

Your payment in the experiment will be determined by your success in the experiment. Remember, a round is considered a success if the action chosen by the Role 2 participant corresponds to the card shown to the Role 1 participant.

You will automatically receive a show-up fee $0.50.

You will earn an additional $0.05 for each success. You will play 20 rounds, in each round you occupy Role 1 and Role 2, meaning you can earn a bonus of up to 40 * $0.05 = $2.00.

This payment structure provides you the opportunity to make as much as $2.50 total.

Tell us a bit about yourself

End

Thank you for participating in this experiment. You can close the browser window / submit the HIT on AMT.