Adjustment patterns and equilibrium selection in experimental signaling games

This paper examines the relation between adjustment patterns and equilibrium selection in laboratory experiments with two types of simple signaling games. One type of game has two Nash equilibria, of which only one is sequential. The other type has two sequential equilibria, only one of them satisfying equilibrium dominance. For each type of game, the results show that variations in the payoff structure, which do not change the equilibrium configuration, generate different adjustment patterns. As a consequence, the less refined equilibrium is more frequently observed for some payoff structures, while the more refined equilibrium is more frequently observed in others.