Resource rationality of fast, goal-directed simulation for novel game reasoning

Determine to what extent the intuitive game theory model that evaluates novel two-player grid games via fast, search-limited, goal-directed agents and partial game simulations is resource rational, and characterize the extent and specific ways naive human reasoners approximate answers to game outcome and fun judgments using resource-rational representations.

Background

The paper introduces an intuitive game theory model that simulates bounded, goal-directed play to make rapid probabilistic judgments about novel grid-based games (e.g., variants of m-in-a-row on different boards). The agent uses shallow lookahead and utility components that capture center placement preferences, progress toward one’s own win condition, and blocking the opponent’s progress. Outcome judgments are derived from a small number of partial simulations rather than exhaustive search to terminal states.

In the discussion, the authors connect their approach to the broader framework of resource rationality, which studies how people make near-optimal decisions given limited cognitive resources. They explicitly raise the question of whether their model itself meets the criteria of resource rationality and how naive human reasoning about these intuitive game evaluations aligns with resource-rational representations. This establishes a concrete open problem concerning the normative status of the model and the cognitive mechanisms underlying human judgments in such tasks.