Iterated Prisoners Dilemma with limited attention

TL;DR

This paper explores how limited attention affects strategies and outcomes in the Iterated Prisoners Dilemma, revealing a critical attention threshold needed for cooperation to outperform defection.

Contribution

It introduces a model analyzing attention constraints in IPD, identifying the critical attention capacity needed for cooperators to succeed over defectors.

Findings

A critical attention threshold exists for cooperation to outperform defection.

Memory size beyond a certain point is unnecessary for effective cooperation.

Attention allocation strategies influence the success of cooperative behavior.

Abstract

How attention scarcity effects the outcomes of a game? We present our findings on a version of the Iterated Prisoners Dilemma (IPD) game in which players can accept or refuse to play with their partner. We study the memory size effect on determining the right partner to interact with. We investigate the conditions under which the cooperators are more likely to be advantageous than the defectors. This work demonstrates that, in order to beat defection, players do not need a full memorization of each action of all opponents. There exists a critical attention capacity threshold to beat defectors. This threshold depends not only on the ratio of the defectors in the population but also on the attention allocation strategy of the players.