The Pitman-Yor process and an empirical study of choice behavior
Masato Hisakado, Fumiaki Sano, Shintaro Mori

TL;DR
This paper models choice behavior using a voting system influenced by recent votes, deriving the Pitman sampling formula as an equilibrium, and applies it to analyze user posting behavior on online bulletin boards.
Contribution
It introduces a voting model with finite memory that explains choice dynamics and derives the Pitman sampling formula as its equilibrium distribution.
Findings
The model accurately describes posting behavior on bulletin boards.
Choice dynamics depend on the last r posts and their distribution.
The Pitman sampling formula emerges as the equilibrium distribution.
Abstract
This study discusses choice behavior using a voting model in which voters can obtain information from a finite number of previous voters. Voters vote for a candidate with a probability proportional to the previous vote ratio, which is visible to the voters. We obtain the Pitman sampling formula as the equilibrium distribution of votes. We present the model as a process of posting on a bulletin board system, 2ch.net, where users can choose one of many threads to create a post. We explore how this choice depends on the last posts and the distribution of these last posts across threads. We conclude that the posting process is described by our voting model with analog herders for a small , which might correspond to the time horizon of users' responses.
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