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Common Interest and Signaling Games: A Dynamic Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Manolo Martínez  and
Peter Godfrey-Smith
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Abstract

We present a dynamic model of the evolution of communication in a Lewis signaling game while systematically varying the degree of common interest between sender and receiver. We show that the level of common interest between sender and receiver is strongly predictive of the amount of information transferred between them. We also discuss a set of rare but interesting cases in which common interest is almost entirely absent, yet substantial information transfer persists in a “cheap talk” regime, and offer a diagnosis of how this may arise.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 83 , Issue 3 , July 2016 , pp. 371 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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