https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00400-x
Statistical analysis of discrimination games
Instituto de Física de São Carlos, Universidade de São Paulo, 13560-970 São Carlos São Paulo, Brazil
Received:
30
June
2006
Revised:
27
September
2006
Published online:
1
November
2006
The hypothesis that meanings originate from discrimination tasks, in which an individual attempts to categorize N objects using a set of M sensory channels, is examined within a quantitative statistical perspective. Failure in discrimination triggers the refinement of a randomly-chosen sensory channel, starting thus an ongoing process, termed discrimination game, that ends only when all objects are differentiated. We show that the expected number of trials of a discrimination game diverges in the case of a single channel and scales with the power N2/M for M ≥2.
PACS: 89.75.Fb – Structures and organization in complex systems / 02.50.Ey – Stochastic processes / 02.50.Le – Decision theory and game theory
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2006
