# A Survey of Game Theoretic Approaches to Modelling Decision-Making in Information Warfare Scenarios
## 5 Research Findings, Challenges, and Opportunities
### Alternative Models in Game Theory  
The work discussed in Section 4 predominantly uses the traditional game theory assumption that players are rational. However, a number of studies have shown that decision makers in many real situations do not adhere to these assumptions [90]. This has led to an increasing recognition that it is necessary to model players in greater detail, considering their behavioural characteristics including intent, objectives, strategies [5] and motives [6]. A few different branches have emerged in game theory literature that specifically focus on bounding the rationality assumption. One such approach that has recently gained popularity is known as behavioural game theory [91]. Recent research under behavioural game theory has developed game-theoretic frameworks that take into account the subjective rationality of individuals as a result of their intrinsic motivations, modelled as innate preferences for certain kinds of incentives (payoffs) [6]. This research has shown that individuals with different motives can misperceive the payoff matrix of a game, resulting in different play strategies and different equilibriums. Motivational psychologists suggest that motives are influential at both individual and national levels [92]. There are thus multiple levels at which the effects of motivation may influence decision making. Examining the influence of motivation on decision making in information warfare scenarios modelled using a game theoretic framework thus remains an open challenge. This may include examining the game theoretic impact of motivation on decision-making in information warfare scenarios in terms of changed game equilibriums, exploring the impact of changing cost functions on decision making by individuals or groups with different intrinsic motives and developing rules that explain differences in decision-making as a result of motivation, to suggest how individuals with different motives will respond to changing cost functions over time.  
Another popular approach that allows relaxing the pure rationality assumption is the evolutionary games [40; 93]. Evolutionary games are based on population dynamics and provide a convenient framework to study competitive interactions in a dynamic setting. Different versions of evolutionary games exist including spatial games [94] that allow studying the dynamics on graphs. With an exception of a few different approaches [95; 96], the use of evolutionary games is rather a less explored area in the context of information warfare that deserves better attention.  
Similar to rationality principle, game-theoretic approaches generally assume players as risk neutral. The risk neutrality assumption is different from the rationality assumption. The latter implies that that agents always choose the action that maximizes their expected payoffs while the former implies that the relationship between utility of agents' preferences over the choice is linear. Similar to rationality principle the observed human behaviour does not conform to risk neutrality assumption. Agent models that incorporate risk preferences in their decisions [97] are thus another important direction that can bring in higher fidelity to game-theoretic modelling of information warfare.