Programming Projects
The research group gains its data by experiments from computer based games in which up to 18 persons participate.
Therefore the core areas of our IT are
- programming multi-client-games,
- recruitment of participants,
- simulations and
- archiving data gained from experiments.
Multi client games
Basically we vary and combine games like Public Goods (PG), Prisoner's Dilemma (PD), Indirect Reciprocity (IR), Ultimatum and similar ones. Server and Clients are programmed platform independently in Java. The experiments take place in our lab, wich is eqquipped with touchscreen computers.
Active Linking
In a series of games of type PD players decide after each round, whether they want to keep their partners or get rid of them, thus changing the network of partnerships continously. The number of players, the number of partners each player is dealing with, the amount of feedback after each round and the way of assigning new partners are configurable.
Three Is Company
summarizes some variants of the ultimatum game.
Generic Game
integrates PG, PD und IR in one server client arrangement in a way, that in each round another type of game can be played. Various settings, e.g. one person to be scanned by a MRT during the experiment, in another case under the influence of smells or hormons, require continously modification of the programs found in our stock.
Recruiting Participants
Players can sign on online by a modified ORSEE (Apache-MySql-PHP). The experimentators invite them out of stock via email to the single sessions. The system tracks participations in experiments, so the experimentators can see, to what types of experiments one can still be invited. At the time being about one thousand persons signed on.
Simulations
Some Linux-Debian based computers are maintained for simulation purposes.
Archiving data
Data achieved from experiments are archived in a database for further evaluation, but in a way, they cannot be linked to the personel data of participants. This database is still in progress.