In one version of the game, this is decided via discussion and the group collectively fills out a sheet specifying who gets what. This presents a potential for exploitation, which can enrich an individual at the expense of his or her fellow group members. Others are interested in how newly formed groups make decisions about allocating resources, and whether allocation norms change over time. We are interested in the stability of group composition when the same pool of people play the game repeatedly, and in the emergence of self-reinforcing patterns of behavior in groups of players who continue to seek one another out across multiple rounds of play. Ray Vukcevich, staff programmer for the psychology department, is developing systems to extract data from the computer logs.
Players also have a chat interface to discuss group formation together using natural language.
You can visit the Confabulation environment on which the social poker site is based. Michelle is continuing development of the program over the summer. However, these have not been implemented. This page last updated Oct 11, 1999.