"In Conversation" Series
Lecturer:
Dr. Vered Kurtz-David (Hebrew University)
Title:
Production Functions and Reasoning in Strategic Interactions
Abstract:
Human thinking operates within limited cognitive capacity, forcing different mental processes to compete for shared resources. This study explores how people reason in strategic settings -- situations that require anticipating others’ actions while performing calculations about potential outcomes. We focus on two core demands of such reasoning: social-iterative reasoning (thinking through others’ perspectives) and arithmetic reasoning (handling quantitative information). Building on the economic concept of production functions, we propose a new framework that explains how these two forms of reasoning interact to shape strategic sophistication. Across three studies, we find that social and arithmetic demands consistently influence how people make strategic choices, and that these effects hold across different types of games. Together, these findings reveal a structured trade-off in how individuals allocate their cognitive resources and offer a new, mechanistic account of how humans reason strategically.
Short Bio:
Vered Kurtz David is a Senior Lecturer and the head of the Neuroeconomics Lab at the Bogen Family Department of Economics and the PPE Program at HUJI. Her research focuses on understanding the cognitive mechanisms of human economic decision-making, combining behavioral and neuroimaging techniques. Her current research includes two main lines of work: (1) Understanding cognitive tradeoffs in strategic choice. (2) Studying how choice mechanisms are shaped by the frequencies with which we encounter choice options. Vered completed her PhD at Tel Aviv University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Paul Glimcher's neuroeconomics lab at NYU. Over the years, she has won numerous awards and fellowships, including the Society for Neuroeconomics’ Best Dissertation Award, Tel Aviv University’s President Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the Israel Science Foundation's Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Social Sciences.
Location:
Eilat Hall, Feldman Building, Second Floor, Edmond Safra Campus.