Learning and transfer in signaling games

We explore how learning to play strategically in one signaling game promotes strategic play in a related signaling game. Following convergence to a pooling equilibrium, payoffs are changed to only support separating equilibria. More strategic play is observed following the change in payoffs than for inexperienced subjects in control sessions, contrary to the prediction of a fictitious play learning model. Introducing a growing proportion of sophisticated learners, subjects who anticipate responders’ behavior following the change in payoffs, enables the model to capture the positive cross-game learning observed in the data. Research support form the National Science Foundation grant number SBR9809538 is gratefully acknowledged. We have received research support from Jo Ducey, Guillaume Frechette, Steve Lehrer, and Carol Kraker Stockman. We have benefitted from comments of Eric Bettinger, John Ham, Jim Rebeitzer, Bob Slonim and seminar participants at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio State University, the University of Mississippi, the University of Illinois, and Purdue University. The usual caveat applies.