A Neuroimaging Study of Preference for Strategic Uncertainty

Abstract

We study the preference for strategic uncertainty using neuroimaging when subjects play sequentially a combination of matching pennies and coordination games without feedback. The scanned subject has the option to ‘play’, in which case both receive outcomes according to their moves, or ‘not play’ and receive the same sure amount along with the ‘opponent’ outside the scanner for whom half the trials are relegated to a dice. Having a ‘no play’ option enables us to estimate the scanned subjects’ certainty equivalent under four types of uncertainties – game (matching pennies versus coordination) × play (strategic versus random). Our finding that subjects generally value playing coordination more than matching pennies provides experimental support for a preference for shared plight in the income inequality literature. We further find that this preference is moderated by whether subjects face strategic or random play by their opponents. Specifically, in facing a matching pennies game, subjects require an ‘ambiguity’ premium to play when the opponent makes a conscious move compared to a random move. Yet, they are willing to accept a discount to play coordination strategically rather than randomly. We employ a source-dependent expected model to analyze the behavioral and imaging data and find that the value of playing the various games to be encoded in the dorsal striatum. We further observe that activations in the amygdala and the orbital prefrontal cortex are modulated by the game × play interaction, extending previous finding of their association with decision making under ambiguity to the setting of strategic uncertainty.

Keywords: experimental economics, neuroeconomics, strategic uncertainty, source preference, decision theory