The Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences Colloquium Series presents

“Higher-Order Uncertainty About Language”
with Andreas Blume, Department of Economics, University of Arizona

Thursday, January 30, 2014
4:00–5:00 p.m.
Social Science Plaza A, Room 2112

It has been frequently noted that successful language use depends on the interlocutors' higher-order beliefs. David Lewis [21], for example, informally introduces common knowledge as part of his account of language as a convention. Blume, instead, formally models and studies the effects of higher-order uncertainty about language. Blume finds that in common-interest communication games higher-order uncertainty about language, while potentially resulting in suboptimal language use at any finite knowledge order, by itself has negligible ex ante payoff consequences. In contrast, with imperfect incentive alignment, higher-order uncertainty about language may lead to complete communication failure for any finite-order knowledge of language.

For further information, please contact Joanna Kerner, kernerj@uci.edu or 949-824-8651.