An eye-tracking study of feature-based choice in one-shot games

We analyze subjects’ eye movements while they make decisions in a series of one-shot games. The majority of them perform a partial and selective analysis of the payoff matrix, often ignoring the payoffs of the opponent and/or paying attention only to specific cells. Our results suggest that subjects apply boundedly rational decision heuristics that involve best responding to a simplification of the decision problem, obtained either by ignoring the other players’ motivations or by considering them only for a subset of outcomes. Finally, we find a correlation between types of eye movements observed and choices in the games.