The emergence of salience: an experimental investigation

In this experiment, individuals recurrently play coordination games that are similar to, but not identical with, one another. Initially, subjects are no more successful than if they had acted at random, but coordination rates gradually increase to levels similar to those found in one-shot games with "obvious" focal points. Subjects seem to coordinate by choosing actions that are similar to ones that have previously been successful. This leads to the emergence of different similarity conventions – interpretable as different conceptions of salience – in different groups of players. We present a simple model of learning which organizes our main findings.