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Experiment description

How to play

Compensation policy

Rankings

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How to play

Introduction

This game is about sequential decision making under uncertainty. In simpler words, it is like facing several slot machines at a time and trying to discover which one is better. As you would do in real like, you will try to get as much money as you can. But, there are two problems with this.

Firstly, you do not know which slot machine is better so you have to explore by pulling them. You may be content by exploiting one slot machine because it has given you money, but you may be also uncertain about the payoff behavior of the others. And here is the conflic, would you pull another just to be more certain about it? or would you stick with the one that has given more money?.

Secondly, game playing could finish after any pull with probability 2%. This means that the game could stop at any time and the more you advance in one particular game, the more lucky you may feel. This does not mean that the probability of finishing at the 100th pull is higher than the 5th pull. It is just that you have to think, "wow.... how lucky I am to have survived pulling 1, 2, 3, ...., up to 99 to be here!"

Lobby

Note: Currently, only the Bernoulli kind of machines is available.

You will face three kinds of slot machines: Bernoulli, Normal, and Wild Normal. In the lobby section of the game, you will choose which kind of game you would like to play next:


Figure 1: Lobby. Where you choose which kind of game to play next.

Here a description of Figure 1:

  1. Bernoulli Room: This room containts games with Bernoulli slot machines.
  2. Normal Room: This room containts games with Normal slot machines.
  3. Wild Normal Room: This room containts games with Wild Normal slot machines.
  4. Progress indicator: It shows the number of game you have played versus total number of games in that room.
  5. Once you have finish all the games or you are tired of playing, you can close the window or press this window. Please don't close the window during game playing.

Goal of the game

Maximize your points!

Rules

Play all games.

How to actually play


Figure 2: Game playing

The left machine is pulled with key "1" and the right with key "2".

Here a description of Figure 2:

  1. Each machine has a number of cues that summarize your progress. These are (a) the number of times you have pulled the machine (b) Total points earned in that machine (c) The average reward (which is simply total points divided by pulls)
  2. The machine's screen will show you the points you get after a pull. The color will indicate how good is the average reward. Red means zero average reward. Yellow means an average reward of 50. And Green means an average reward of 100. There will be a gradient across these three colors depending on the actual average reward.
  3. A pile of coints proportional to the Total Reward of that machine
  4. Current score within the game.
  5. Total number of pulls.
  6. Show the keys associated with machines.
  7. The two players that are above and two that are bellow you on the general ranking.
  8. The two players that are above and two that are bellow you on the bernoulli ranking.
  9. The two players that are above and two that are bellow you on the normal ranking.
  10. The two players that are above and two that are bellow you on the wild normal ranking.

Enjoy playing!