wiki:confusion

Version 24 (modified by developer, 21 months ago) (diff)

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name

  • name does....
  • name=first - when set to "first", CONG prompts players for their first name before the session begins.

percentChangePerSecond == [NaN] or [0,Inf]. A field set to Not-a-Number or a real number bettween zero and infinity, inclusive.

  • When the period is in discrete time the percentChangePerSecond field is not applicable, set this field to NaN.
  • When the period is in continuous time this determines the rate at which players can change their strategy. For example, when this field is set to percentChangePerSecond =".1" the players can change their strategy via the selector by a maximum of 10% per second. When percentChangePerSecond="NaN" changes in strategy are reflected instantaneously on screen and with other players.

Discrete Time Settings

subperiods

  • In the config file which defines a game, experimentalists first choose the period length; the number of seconds the period lasts. (Here is an example of a sixty second game).
  • In a Discrete Time Period - Subjects are free to change their strategies at any time during the discrete time subperiod, but only the strategy selected at the end of the subperiod is used to calculate payoffs. Subjects do not observe the strategy choice of their counterpart(s) until the period’s end.
  • Progress Bar - subjects have an intuitive progress bar communicating how much of the subperiod remains
  • The subperiods fields defines the discretization of the game.
  • A Few Examples
    • With subperiods set to 0, the period runs in continuous time.
    • With subperiods set to 1, we are running a one-shot game.
    • With subperiods set to 6, you have a six-shot game.
  • Note: subperiods establishes the number of subperiods in the game, NOT the length of the subperiod. If n=subperiods and T=length, then $\textrm{length of the subperiod}=\frac{T}{n}$

Grouping

Here we tersely discuss some things to keep in mind when working with the groupSize and numGroups. For a more conceptual discussion of how ConG thinks about groups and matching subjects in a period or game, for one & two population games configurations, arbitrary groupings configurations, and other fancy stuff -- please see our full Groupings pages.

groupSize

  • groupSize - [1,n] Integer field which determines the number of players in each group. The group size is determined by dividing the number of players by groupSize.
  • That is $\textrm{number of groups}=\frac{number of subjects}{groupSize}$
  • The number of subjects must be evenly divisible by the number selected in groupSize. An error or other failure will ensue otherwise. For example if we start a game with ten subject, we must set groupSize to 1, 2, 5 or 10. Any other selection not evenly divisible will result in some sort of error or failure.

numGroups

  • numGroups - [1,n] Integer field which determines the number of groups formed in the period.
  • numGroups will work with a ragged number of subjects. For example, if we start an experiment with 10 subject and set numGroups to 3, this means ConG will create two groups of 3 subjects and one group of 4 subjects.

Important Note - groupSize & numGroups can NEVER be used in the same period definition row - that is; if, for some reason you need to have both groupSize and numGroups columns in your game definition config file, in each row only one column may have a an interger, the other field must be blank.

  • It's probably best to just use one or the other.

Example of an Okay Config File:

period paid length subperiods groupSize numGroups . . . .
1 TRUE 300 0 3 . . . .
2 TRUE 300 0 3 . . . .
3 TRUE 300 0 2 . . . .
4 TRUE 300 0 6 . . . .

Example of a Not-Okay Config File:

period paid length subperiods groupSize numGroups . . . .
1 TRUE 300 0 3 Okay. . . .
2 TRUE 300 0 1 3 ERROR||
3 TRUE 300 0 2 3 ERROR||
4 TRUE 300 0 6 Okay. . . .

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