Task-Driven Social Decisions in Shared Space
Welcome to our online multiplayer experiment! In this study, you will play alongside other real-time connected participants in collaborative and competitive grid scenarios.
Cover Story & Context
The Crash on the Plantation: A heavy cargo lorry transport carrying fresh premium Apples 🍎 swerved off course and crashed directly into an organic Banana 🍌 plantation.
The ground is completely littered with apples and bananas. You have been assigned the role of an Apple Gatherer. Your job is simple but critical: Collect as many apples 🍎 as you can, as fast as possible.
You will play three distinct blocks of games. In each block, you will be paired with a different online participant who was randomized into their own specific collection tasks on the grid.
Compensation & Trust Game: In addition to your standard completion reward, you will be allocated bonus trust points to share with your peers. They can also share back, modifying your final payout.
By continuing, you agree to anonymized data collection for scientific use.
Learn the Controls
Before joining other players, practice moving your gatherer (Blue 🤠) around the grid to collect Apples (🍎).
↑ ↓ ← → or W A S D Move your character
Goal: Collect Apples (🍎).
*Note: Bananas (🍌) are present, but you only receive points for Apples.
Tap/Hold Controls Below or Swipe
Collect 3 more apples to unlock the experiment.
Connecting to Active Session
Please wait while we sync you with a matched participant for this round.
Capture only the Apples (🍎). Avoid wasting time on Bananas (🍌) as they do not reward you points.
Your opponent has also entered the plantation. Move quickly!
Live Map Feed
How did they perform?
Please evaluate the other player, Player X, based on your interactions in this round.
The Bonus Distribution Task
You have finished all gameplay rounds. Now, you have been granted extra resources to share with your teammates!
Trust Task Mechanics
You are given 100 endowment points for each of the three players you encountered.
For each player, you can choose to send any amount between 0 and 100 points. Any points you send are tripled (3x) before reaching the other player.
The other player is then presented with the same opportunity. They will decide how much of the tripled points to transfer back to you.
Results of the Allocation Task
The other players have processed their return decisions. Below are the outcomes of your transfers:
Exit Demographics & Feedback
Please complete these final academic questions to conclude your session.
Thank You for Participating!
Your experimental data has been captured successfully.
Debriefing Information
The primary objective of this social psychology research is to understand how humans deduce the hidden goals and values of other agents in shared spatial workspaces, and how these deductions subsequently influence trust and interpersonal liking.
The Experimental Manipulation: Although you were told you were playing with live players online, you were actually playing alongside pre-programmed algorithms designed to behave in one of three ways:
- Condition A (The Competitor): Designed to target only apples, directly competing for your designated resources.
- Condition B (The Generalist): Target independent items (apples or bananas), reflecting uncoordinated co-habitation.
- Condition C (The Cooperator): Target only bananas, avoiding your food targets entirely and leaving you clear pathways.
This deception is necessary so we can analyze standard human perceptual models without noisy interpersonal variability.
You may safely close this tab or save the data payload above for empirical submission.