Inducing imperfect recall in the lab

Our paper provides a procedure to induce imperfect recall in the laboratory, even though in the past it has been claimed that this is difficult to achieve in a controlled environment. To accomplish this task we rely on a technique called divided attention to impair subject recollection of previous choices in a version of the absent-minded driver game of Piccione and Rubinstein [Piccione, M., Rubinstein, A., 1997a. On the interpretation of decision problems with imperfect recall. Games and Economic Behavior 20, 3–24]. The results suggest that a substantial number of subjects experience imperfect recall yet still behave in a rational manner. The observed behavior is consistent with a large portion of the subjects falling prey to the temporal paradox as suggested by Piccione and Rubinstein [Piccione, M., Rubinstein, A., 1997a. On the interpretation of decision problems with imperfect recall. Games and Economic Behavior 20, 3–24].